


Life in Detail

by ishtarelisheba



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Pretty Woman AU, allusions to the sort of sexual abuse that prostitutes are subjected to, in which Belle is the business mogul and spinner!Rumple is the prostitute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-02-11 17:29:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 79,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12940185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: Belle French, heir to her father’s company and fortune, appears to have everything she could possibly wish for. Comfort. Security. Legacy. She’s the reigning princess of a not insignificant portion of the international business world. But it turns out that a life made of dismantling other people’s livelihoods isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.Having lost everything that made his life worth living in one fell swoop, and blaming himself every inch of the way for it, Arden Gold works a block of Hollywood Boulevard to survive. When a little green sports car comes grinding up next to him, it’s just another trick to turn, the only hope in it one for earning rent.Until she rolls down the window.





	1. A Princess in a Picture

Never had there been a more opportune moment for her cell phone to ring. The polite thing might have been to ignore the vibration or turn her phone off altogether and continue listening to Zelena’s efforts at wooing the group of three potential investors the woman currently had in her thrall. Instead, Belle took out her phone and gave the screen a look of careful concern.

“Excuse me, this may be an important call,” she said, giving the small group her most professional smile before she stepped away.

She was glad of the excuse to retreat into the quiet of the house. There was only so much of her lawyer’s schmoozing that she could stand. It was simply the way Zelena did business, she knew, and the sort of people who invested in companies like hers responded to it. After a solid three hours, however, it had begun to feel teeth-grindingly sleazy. 

Belle closed the door on the noisy back yard, accepting the call as she walked into the kitchen. She had been sending his calls to voicemail all day, knowing she’d eventually have to respond.

“Gaston!” she answered as though she hadn’t been avoiding him.

“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?” he demanded.

“Well, hello to you, too.” She paced across to the window, looking out. “I’ve been busy. I’m at a business function as we speak.” It was a good reason to hang up quickly, if she had to.

“‘Business function’?” She heard a huff of breath from him. “Don’t you mean ‘party’?”

“Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to be,” Belle told him in all honesty. She loathed these things - the fake smiles, the calculating conversation. Even she was guilty of it, and she hated that, too. “Do you need something? Why have you been calling every thirty minutes?”

“I’ve been trying to get you on the phone since last night!”

“For any particular _reason?”_ she asked him again.

He could have said anything. _‘I just wanted to touch base.’ ‘I just wanted to hear your voice.’ ‘I miss you.’_ She would have been touched. It probably would have even made her smile.

Gaston sputtered into the other end of the line. “I wanted to know where the hell you were!” 

That, on the other hand, was not an ideal response.

Her expression fell, and she lowered her voice the way she did when they argued. “Me going away for business is not a new thing for us.”

“You’re telling me!” He laughed, but it was a bitter sound, no trace of amusement in it. “You know I can count the days you’ve been home in the last month on one hand? I talk to your secretary more often than I talk to you.”

“Gaston, I’m handling an extremely important account right now. We’ve talked about this.” They’d had this and similar discussions via phone and Skype during nearly every business trip she had taken over the course of their relationship. “When it all goes through, I’ll be able to take some time off, and we-”

“Yeah, I know all about the ‘important account.’ You cite it every damn time I remind you how rarely you’re around. I’m beginning to wonder if you have somebody on the side out there,” Gaston accused.

Belle wasn’t sure what to say to that. He knew better. He couldn’t possibly believe it, could he? She turned to lean on the counter next to the big farm sink, resting her head in her hand as she waited for him to say something that felt less like an attack. 

“You know, Belle, most women have some kind of nurturing instinct.” His tone dripped with resentment. “Most women _enjoy_ being around for their boyfriends.”

She narrowed her eyes at the neglected begonia in the kitchen window. If he’d imagined saying that sort of bullshit would make her want to run home to him, he was sorely mistaken.

“You knew what my life was like when we started going out. It didn’t seem to bother you at all when you moved in,” she pointed out. “I never gave you a single reason to think I would be some stay-at-home girlfriend.”

“Maybe this isn’t going to work out, after all,” he said, and he let it hang in the air.

Belle got the feeling that he thought she would jump in and beg him to reconsider. If anything about them _had_ been salvageable, he’d thrown it away with his ‘nurturing’ remark. She allowed the silence to stretch until he spoke again.

“And maybe it’d be best if one of us moved out until we find some middle ground,” Gaston continued awkwardly, sounding frustrated and angry that she hadn’t taken the bait on top of everything else.

Weary and beyond irritated, she made the decision she’d been putting off for far too long. “I think you’re right. This isn’t working.”

“Belle…” He sounded shocked. “Wait. We’ll talk about this face to face. You owe me that much.”

“The loft is mine, bought and pair for. In my name,” she went on, hoping that he got the anvil of a hint.

There was a stunned silence before he said, “Fine. I’ll be moved out by the time you get back.”

She hung up. If she stayed on the line, he would hem and haw, and she would let him. He would back out of leaving, and they would stay together for who knew how much longer before it utterly imploded.

Gaston needed someone compatible with him - supposing that a woman who would tolerate him existed somewhere, of course - and she was sick of being treated as though she were inadequate for not being at his beck and call. That meant more than two years down the drain, but it wouldn’t have lasted so long if she hadn’t gone on patching things back together after guilt trips like the one he’d tried to give her today.

Belle looked down at her phone and turned it off in the event that he decided to call back. Two years. She’d known they weren’t a great match from the first date. He had been insistent, though, and she’d been so tired of dating. And look where it had gotten her. Her eyes began to sting as she thought about it. 

_No._ She wouldn’t cry over a breakup she had been hoping for. It was ridiculous. But heat flooded her eyes despite her stubborn refusal, and she blinked quickly in an attempt to make it go away. Suddenly, she couldn’t take being there in her lawyer’s house at all anymore.

She hurried from the kitchen and through the living room. It was filled with clusters of people, guests from various parts of the business world and their significant others. Her vision blurred and she ran right into Zelena’s assistant.

“Ms. French? Are you okay?” he asked, reaching automatically for her arms to keep her from stumbling.

“Walsh, just tell Zelena I had to go. I have to get some fresh air.” She pulled away and steered around him, finding that the foyer was nearly as populated.

“Belle! I’d wondered where you were,” someone called out to her in an unmistakable Derbyshire accent. “Not running off s’fast, are you?”

Belle put on a smile. She could usually slip away from these things without drawing attention or raising any eyebrows. Today, though, of course… 

“Will,” she said as she turned. She’d forgotten that he was on the guest list. It had been years since she’d last seen him, and now was not the time she wanted to catch up. “I’m sorry, I’m just on my way out.”

“Oh.” He actually looked disappointed. “Sorry you’re going already. Ana’s coming later. I’d hoped to introduce you.”

“I’ll meet her another time,” Belle promised, her smile turning more genuine. 

She and Will had dated for a few months in the ancient past and discovered that it wasn’t working before they began to hate one another. He’d found someone with whom he fit, and she truly was glad of it. He wasn’t a bad guy at all. They simply hadn’t been good together. 

“I did hear you’d gotten married,” she said. “Congratulations.”

“Yeah, almost a year ago, now. We’re expecting,” he told her proudly.

“That’s wonderful, Will.” She would have to make a note on her phone to have gifts sent along for the baby. “I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks. I heard you were getting fairly serious with Gaston Legrand?” He grinned, obviously expecting good news of some sort.

Her stomach dropped. “No,” she said, shaking her head. _Why_ did she feel so bad about it? “No, not so much. I’m a free agent, currently.”

He sidestepped the topic, and she didn’t know whether he’d picked up on her discomfort, but she was grateful for it. “Ana will be disappointed she didn’t get to meet you. She’ll be dragging you in for one of her dinner parties when she finds out you had to go.”

“You tell her I’ll be happy to attend. I’m sorry, Will, I really have to-” She shrugged, motioning toward the front door.

“It was nice seeing you. It was,” he told her, and he leaned to give her a quick, only slightly awkward peck on the cheek before she hurried off.

She was almost to the door when she turned back to him. “Will?” she said, and he looked to her with his heavy brows lifted in question. “When we were… Did you talk to Leroy more often than you talked to me?”

“Belle, he, uh…” Will smiled wryly, his expression turning a bit sad. “Leroy - he was my best man.”

Belle could only nod. She kept herself from running out of the house, but only just.

Her driver sat on the artificially patinaed wrought iron bench next to the front door, looking out on the wilding garden next to the drive. He stood when he saw her.

“Graham,” she said, relieved that he was so nearby. Her voice felt too thin. “I need to get back to the hotel.”

“Are you all right?” he asked with a frown, and she had to wonder how awful she looked.

“I’m fine,” Belle lied. “I just need to get back immediately.”

Graham looked out across the expansive driveway, crowded with vehicles as it was, and back to her. “I’m sorry, I don’t know that that’ll be possible, ma’am,” he admitted. “The cars are packed in bumper to bumper. I could fetch out the people all around-”

“Belle! Whatever are you doing?” Zelena chided as she came legging out the front door with her assistant in her wake. “Walsh says you’re leaving!”

“I need some fresh air,” she said, fighting the urge to scream the words in frustration. “I’ve done the handshaking and cheek-kissing all around. No one will miss me.” 

She looked for something, _anything_ to give her a way out. Her eyes fell on Zelena’s leaf green Bugatti Veyron, its immaculate custom paint job shimmering in the late afternoon sun. It was one of very few not completely blocked in.

Belle turned back to her lawyer. “Let me borrow your car?”

“You… want to borrow my Margie?” Zelena looked as if she’d swallowed a bug. “Give me a few minutes and I can get these cars moved.”

“I need to get out of here now. _Please?”_ Begging was not something she did, but she was desperate and feeling more trapped every second.

Zelena scowled, but the looked to her assistant. “Fine. Walsh,” she directed. He ran back into the house, returning less than a minute later with his boss’ car keys. She snatched them from him and handed the ring with its big gold ‘Z’ fob and smaller remote to Belle. “You be careful with my baby.”

“Thank you!” Belle pressed the button to unlock the doors. She slid into the driver’s seat and adjusted it enough that she could reach the pedals.

Zelena gave a laugh at Belle’s adjustments. “Do you even know where you’re going?”

“I’ll find my way,” Belle said, and she pulled the door closed with a satisfying _clunk._

The engine roared to life. She left the drive without telling Margie’s owner that she hadn’t driven in more than fifteen years and didn’t have the first clue about a paddle shift.

She drove without knowing where she was headed, wanting simply to feel as though she were getting somewhere, making some sort of progress for a while. She’d been hurt by Gaston, as much as she hated to admit it to herself. And she knew she’d hurt him, too, by not putting as much effort into the relationship as she should have.

It was just another ending to add to the list. Her parting with Will had been the one amicable breakup she’d been through. Before him, there’d been Keith, with whom she’d broken up in the middle of their first argument when he called her a ‘pigheaded bitch’ and threw a plate at her. She and Helina had grown apart even before Helina moved back home, her girlfriend having met someone else and ending things with her to date them. Belle went through the rest of her history as she found her way out of the neighborhood, realizing that it never seemed to be the same thing twice. Apparently she had a talent for screwing up relationships in any number of ways.

She believed in love. She believed in the kind that kept people together for _decades._ She was weary of the hurt that came with searching for it, though, and she wasn’t certain whether she was meant to find that kind of love, herself. Was it even worth it, slogging through that heartache again and again on the off chance that she might find someone who could stick with her? 

Maybe she was meant to be alone. Maybe she worked too much to be fair to any significant other, anyway. Why should she change her entire life for someone else, though? She wasn’t about to let anyone force her to tear her life down just to rebuild it around them.

Belle tried to change gears, and the engine made a dismaying grinding noise. She knew how to drive. Mostly in theory, but she knew. She hadn’t really driven since having a fender bender in her first car, after which her father had hired a driver for her instead. 

Before she knew it, she was so lost that she didn’t recognize _anything._ Keeping one eye on the road, she began poking at the screen of the GPS on the dash. It was still programmed for Zelena’s business trip to Fresno the previous week. With no idea how to make the thing work for her, she hesitated to simply mash buttons.

Directions. She would have to stop and ask for directions back to Beverly Hills. Belle looked around, realizing the questionable nature of the area she’d driven herself into, and braced herself as she tried to decide where to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _We'll be going pretty faithfully by the movie's formula here, my dears. There aren't going to be a whole lot of surprises._


	2. Where Things Are Hollow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Warning for a homophobic slur in this chapter.)

Arden had been in the middle of the most wonderful dream. He’d been with Bae, still the littlest baby, rocking his son to sleep in some nursery the likes of which he could never afford. He could still feel the weight resting against his shoulder. He could smell Bae’s hair, could almost hear the soft sound that the baby made when he yawned. 

The first alarm clock went off and he could have cried with the loss. His head barely touched the pillow after hitting the snooze button when the second started to buzz, and then the third went off across the room in rapid succession, forcing him to drag himself out of bed to go and shut the damned thing up. He fumbled sleepily with the clock until he only by chance hit the button to quiet it.

After taking a minute to let his head stop reeling from launching out of bed so fast, he went to shower. It was nice to at least _begin_ the night not smelling like other people.

He turned the water on as hot as he could stand it and stood under the spray, rubbing his knuckles against his breastbone and trying to relieve the ache there. There was no time to lollygag, and it wasn’t as though it mattered much. If two showers a day weren’t enough to make him feel clean, then putting off going to work for just another few minutes under the water wasn’t going to help.

Taking his pajamas off the rack over the toilet, he went back into the main room of the cramped studio, folding them and sticking them beneath the covers as he made his bed. Arden stepped over to the dresser that he shared with his roommate and took out a pair of his work underwear to arrange himself into.

He looked up at the corkboard he’d scrounged from the rubbish behind a pharmacy. It sat on top of the dresser, leaning against the wall and holding all the photos he had. There were were a couple of old photographs of his mum and one of her own mother, despite having never met her. All the rest were of Bailey. Some he’d folded to get his ex-girlfriend out of sight. There was a single picture that showed his own face - one of himself and Bae in the scroungy little park a few blocks down from their first apartment. He’d scratched or burned his face out of all the rest.

It was only because he’d had the photos hidden that he had them now. Milah had a habit of getting rid of things he cared about when she was angry with him. He’d lost his mum’s ring that way, and the baby blanket she’d made for him - the one he had given to his own son.

Shaking his head, he tried to pull himself back from the memories. He couldn’t go out feeling down. It was bad for business.

Fishing a pair of socks that were both clean and matching from the bottom of the underwear drawer, he went to sit on the edge of his bed to dress. His clothes were all laid out, draped across the open nightstand drawer. He had two outfits decent enough to draw in clients, and he wore them two nights on, two nights off, to give him time to wash things. Tonight he’d set out the better of the two.

The only nice top he had - a slim, black dress shirt he’d saved from the trash outside of Wonderland - had a couple of small bleach stains on the front. It was perfect otherwise, the stains easily hidden. He’d only had to take it in a bit with needle and thread. Over it he wore a heavy, tightly-fitted waistcoat he’d found at the charity shop. He figured it to have been part of someone’s costume for something or other, but it was well made. Arden liked it because it made him feel oddly safe, as though it held him together. 

There was the pair of black leather trousers that Jeff had been given by some trick, that had made him blush and his roommate jawdrop when Jeff finally talked him into trying the things on, and his boots that were now beneath the bed. Somewhere. His roommate had probably given them a kick upon coming in late this morning. He slid to the floor to search them out. 

Glancing at one of the clocks, he was relieved to find enough time to fix his loose waistcoat button. He searched through the rickety nightstand drawer for his spool of red thread, taking the already threaded needle from it. Pulling a knot in the end of the strand, he re-anchored the button until he was certain that it wouldn’t make a getaway. His shirt was in in need of some reinforcement to a shoulder seam, but that wasn’t so urgent that it couldn’t wait until he got back in the morning. 

Once dressed, he stepped back into the bathroom to rummage through the small makeup bag belonging to his roommate, looking for the single item in it that was his. He leaned close to the mirror, using the eyeliner the way Jeff had taught him. He drew it thinly - a far cry from the crisp, stark black lines that Jeff created for himself - not being at all confident with it. Arden felt as if he looked ridiculous, but most of his customers seemed to like it. Tossing the pencil back into the bag, he took his wig from the cabinet knob where it hung. It was a cheap, black thing, but it was the best he could afford at the time he found it, and more than he could afford now. He tucked his hair beneath it and looked into the mirror only long enough to check that none poked out from underneath.

It wasn’t him. The wig, the eyeliner, the clothes. It wasn’t really him. It was a character. A mask. Layers upon layers of armor that were _not him._

Arden made sure that his papers and key were still in his wallet and slid it into his pocket, then disconnected his phone from its cord on the nightstand. He groaned at the message telling him that he was out of minutes. There were regulars who contacted him, and if they couldn’t text or call, then that was money lost.

He was nearly out the door when he remembered. Rent day. At least they had it, but he muttered to himself anyway as he climbed onto his bed to reach the out-of-commission ceiling fan above it. He pulled a coin purse with a rolled piece of duct tape on the back from the top of one of the fan blades. Opening it, he expected to find the seven hundred dollars they’d been saving up through the month.

There were fifty dollars in tens inside.

 _“Jefferson,_ he snarled aloud. “Goddamn you, how did you even _find_ it?”

He stepped back down to the floor and began to pace what short distance there was. He could sneak out. They’d done it before when they didn’t have enough to make rent. Six hundred and fifty dollars was far shorter than they had ever been, though.

Heading downstairs, he found the landlord right there on the landing, screaming at one of their neighbors because she was five bucks short. And there he was without rent at all. His stomach tied up in knots with images of Jeff and himself being kicked out on the street and what kind of life that would be. Living the way they did now was hard enough already.

Arden turned on his heel and snuck silently down to the hall window. He could brave the fire escape. It was the lesser of two evils. He couldn’t deal with the landlord screaming in his face right now.

His heart pounded as he climbed slowly and carefully down. He could just see himself slipping and falling and re-injuring his ankle, and then everything would be blown to hell, anyway. Nobody would pick up a whore with a limp.

He could _get_ rent. He and Jeff only needed six good customers between the two of them tonight, he figured. Maybe even five, if they found the right ones. 

One of the fourth floor tenants saw him on his way down and he gave her a pale, sheepish smile. She frowned and slammed the window down, and he clung tightly to the ladder rung for a moment before continuing. At last, to his great relief, his feet found solid ground. He dusted his hands together and headed to the bodega on the corner to buy minutes for his phone before going back toward Hollywood Boulevard to find Jeff and give his spectacularly inconsiderate roommate a piece of his mind.

“Your fate is not a game of chance!” called a women with a mass of tangled ginger curls, stopping passersby on the sidewalk to preach her particular brand of something akin to faith at them. Heavy scars were visible from around the edges of her black sunglasses, and she used her long probing cane to waylay people. “Every step you make, you bring upon yourself what you deserve! Take comfort in knowing that you receive what you’re worth in the eyes of the Universe!”

Arden steered around her, wrapping his arms around himself. It was half the night every night, the woman walking up and down the Boulevard, spreading the same message over and over. On bad nights, fed up and hurting, he’d gotten into arguments with her. How could the people working the street out there deserve any of it? On worse nights, he could only think that she was right. He deserved the hell he was in.

The rest of the street’s inhabitants were the usual suspects, more or less. Some tourists, people hovering in the mouths of alleys to sell an impressive selection of drugs, cops here and there doing little to nothing. 

A clump of said officers stood around the entrance of an alley near his destination. They were talking as though someone had died. There was a mention of hookers. Arden heard _“-don’t know how we’ll identify the body without-”_ as he passed by.

There were more tourists standing near the policemen. They looked like a couple, and the ear he’d developed for accents told him that they were from somewhere around Boston as they tried to get information out of the cops. The man held up his phone over one of the cops’ shoulders, actually fucking _taking photos_ in an attempt to catch something grisly and horrific. 

One part of Arden was accustomed to the callousness. He saw it every day. He found it inflicted on himself almost as often. But another part of him was disturbed. It seemed people like him weren’t even considered human. Those people saw the death of someone like him as free tourist entertainment.

He turned right, hurrying into Wonderland, the grimy little ‘nightclub’ that Jeff frequented, for better or worse. It was originally intended to be some luxury bar, but thanks to a bankruptcy and a quick resale, it had fallen into hands that seemed to have turned it purposefully seedy and sticky and sordid, to be kind about it.

The bouncer knew him on sight, and he didn’t even have to pause on his way in. He scanned the floor for Jeff, but apparently his roommate wasn’t in the main room.

“You’d better not be,” he muttered under his breath, heading for the back.

They were Cora’s rooms, these curtained partitions hidden off in the back of the bar. A half dozen small rooms divided by plywood walls painted a bloody shade of red, barely enough to fit two people and a chair. It was the very least she could get away with, because making money off of them was her goal, not comfort. Arden paused outside of each, cringing as he listened to the noises and voices, trying to pick Jeff’s from among them. Disappointingly enough, in the cubicle two from the end… 

“The rent, Jefferson?” he snapped as he flung the curtain aside to find his roommate’s head bobbing up and down in some guy’s lap.

Cora stood in the far corner of the cubicle to give them room, watching with a _look_ on her face. Not lust. Some sort of sick triumph. The guy in the chair looked like he’d just swallowed his tongue, and Jeff pulled off him with a hollow-cheeked _pop._

His roommate squinted up at him, high as a kite. “Jesus, give me a minute and I’ll be out.”

Cora smiled. The words slithered from her lips with satisfaction. “He’s _working.”_

For sake of safety, they always waited and went down to the street together. Cora liked to separate people, work them independently. It gave her more control. Arden could see it; Jeff couldn’t. All his roommate could see were the prostitutes under her getting a steady flow of customers while the two of them had to compete on the Boulevard for theirs.

He yanked the curtain shut and went out to lean against the wall next to the door that led to Cora’s rooms. It didn’t take long. The guy Jeff had been blowing came out, face red, straightening his tie. Arden stared at him, daring him to meet his eyes, but the man kept his gaze fixed on the floor as he scuttled toward the exit. 

He waited. And waited. 

Ten minutes was the limit to his patience tonight. He went back in only to find Jeff doing some flirtatious preliminary talking with another john, Cora still looking on. Angry and upset, Arden grabbed Jefferson by the arm and dragged him out.

“You bought drugs with our _rent money!”_ he accused once he’d gotten Jeff into the front room.

Jeff laughed defensively. “I was drumming up business!” 

“‘Drumming up business,’” Arden repeated, and he frowned as he pushed his roommate ahead of him. “I’d take you more seriously if you didn’t have dick breath and nothing to show for it.”

“You have to spend money to make money!”

“Well, that came directly out of Cora’s mouth.”

Jeff gave a scornful little sound, but he couldn’t even dispute it. “I _was_ in the process of making it back double!” 

Cora came swaying out of the cubicle. “Oh, calm down, dear. He only owes me five more,” she said, flashing a bright white shark’s grin.

“Five _hundred?_ Jefferson!” Arden looked at his roommate in disbelief, hoping he’d say something that didn’t turn up further bad news.

Jeff looked to Cora, begging her not to say more. “It’s not from this time,” he said. “That’s from last month.”

Moving Jeff aside with a skilled bump of her hip, Cora stepped nearer Arden, pressing herself against him. She pushed a knee between his, turning a hand to slide it up his thigh.

“You know, if you wanted to… _work_ off your friend’s debt yourself, I would be quite agreeable,” she offered with another of her unsettling smiles. 

She lifted her hand to rest it on his chest, her fingers touching his skin where his collar lay open. A chill crawled over him. He’d heard about her predilections, and even had he not known that she made the offer solely to make him uncomfortable, there was no way in hell. He opened his mouth to tell her just that, and they were interrupted.

A young woman with long, dark hair and a remarkable resemblance to Cora stumbled out of the back room. Her eye makeup ran down her face and she held together the front of a white lace teddy that had been torn open.

Cora looked at the girl and turned on her, making her recoil into the wall. “What the fuck did you do?” she snapped. “Do you know how much I _paid_ for that?”

Jumping in, Jeff grabbed Arden’s arm and turned him around, taking them toward the bar.

“You found my hiding spot,” Arden hissed, pulling out of his grasp. “When? It was before today, because I’m pretty damn sure I don’t sleep soundly enough for you to climb on my bed with me in it.”

Jefferson shrugged. “Yesterday. While you were down the street getting bread.”

“I trusted you!”

“Apparently not enough not to hide the rent money. And it’s _my_ apartment, anyway!” Jeff scowled, not meeting Arden’s eye as he said it.

Arden stared after him, and it was as though he heard his father speaking in his ear again.

_Nothing in this house is yours, you little worm. Don’t you ever forget it all belongs to me. You’re lucky I let you live here._

“I live there, too,” he murmured. It was all but lost under the music, but his roommate got the gist.

“Hey, I found you on the street. _I_ gave _you_ a place to crash. I showed you how to get by when you were serial killer bait,” Jeff went on indignantly, but he seemed to run out of steam. “I had to give her something, or she was gonna take it out of my hide.”

With that laid out in front of him, Arden felt guilty. Jefferson was right. If it hadn’t been for Jeff, he likely _would_ have been a body in an alley years ago.

“We don’t pay rent, it’ll be someone else’s apartment,” Arden told his roommate, trying to get across how dire the situation was.

Jeff effectively ended the argument by veering toward the bar, in the direction of a bus tray full of half-eaten plates of food. 

“At least tear away the parts that have been eaten off of,” Arden said as Jeff picked up a piece of a cheeseburger from someone’s plate. 

When the bartender wasn’t looking, he emptied shells from one flimsy peanut bowl into another and handed it to his roommate. Jeff reached over to take the fork from the open jar of olives behind the counter and began taking some already questionable leftover shrimp from another plate.

Leaning on the slightly sticky edge of the bar as Jeff ate his findings, Arden asked, “Haven’t you thought about trying to get out of this?”

“Out? You mean apply for a day job?” Jeff laughed, only narrowly not choking on the end of a mozzarella stick as he bit it off the already eaten part. “What would you put on an application when they ask about previous employment?” He grinned over at Arden, then took in the serious look on his face and the slump of his roommate’s shoulders. “Yeah. Of course. Every day. Everybody _thinks_ about it. But how, you know? It takes money, and we can’t even afford the cheese part of a cheese sandwich.”

Jefferson tilted his head toward the front door and followed his own gesture that way. Arden followed, watching as Jeff continued to eat his salvaged dinner on the way to their stretch of sidewalk a few blocks down.

It was a fantasy. Arden knew that. The whole idea of making a life outside of this was a fantasy now. With no place to go, no money left after rent and scraping together groceries, no ‘real’ job to lend credibility to his existence - there was nothing else he could do.

“Son of a bitch,” Jeff growled around a mouthful of fries while his roommate was navel-gazing, and he charged ahead.

Arden looked up to see what Jeff was headed toward and he found Felix, tall and skinny and all frosted blonde hair, leaning against the parking meter. The night continued to get worse.

Jefferson flung the nearly empty peanut bowl at Felix, making the younger guy throw an arm up to deflect it. “Get the fuck off our beat!”

“My, my, you’ve come up in the world,” Felix retorted with a slow, lazy smirk. “Didn’t know you owned anything on this stretch.”

Standing nearly nose to nose with him, Jefferson stabbed a pointed finger down the sidewalk. “We work Elvis, Viv, Rosie, all the way down to Freddie Prinze. This is _our_ block and you know it. Go back to your parking lot.”

Felix finally pushed himself away from the meter. “Fine, back off,” he said as he sauntered off. “Everybody’s right. You’re nuts. Better visit the clinic, probably syphilis gone to your brain!”

Jefferson glared viciously after Felix until he was gone, then he turned to Arden, looking as if the wind had been taken out of him. “Do people really say I’m nuts?”

“…No,” Arden lied with a sigh and a strained smile.

He was still angry, but he had to live with his roommate, and Jeff’s hurt expression stung the same way Bae’s had. He couldn’t make it worse.

“You’re eccentric. It’s part of your charm,” Arden told him.

Jeff scuffed the toe of his sneaker against a crack in the concrete. “I get touchy when my blood sugar gets low.”

Arden resisted telling him that they could have gone grocery shopping in a couple of days if _someone_ hadn’t taken the money he’d had squirreled away. As it was, they’d have to depend on the forageable bin out back of the market a few blocks up from their apartment.

A beaten-up white sedan hit its brakes, screeching to a halt next to them, and honked its horn. Jeff pushed Arden toward it as the window rolled down.

“How much for the two of you?” one of the guys inside asked, laughing.

Arden felt warning bells go off in his head. Almost exclusively, a guy who was just looking for sex drove up alone. Two men in a car was potentially dangerous. Three was never a good thing. But they were beyond desperate.

“Three hundred,” Jeff called out to the car from the sidewalk.

The man in the driver’s seat - younger than Jeff, though not by much - asked Arden, “You’ll blow the birthday boy?”

Arden smirked, pulling on a mask of seduction. It wasn’t him. _It wasn’t him._

He stepped down from the curb to lean on the car’s window sill. “I suck cock like I invented it.”

“How about a discount?” the guy in the back seat asked, leaning up between the other two. “Or a free sample? It _is_ my birthday!” They all laughed again, and the driver started to pull away while Arden still leaned on the car.

The guy in the passenger seat leaned out, yelling back at them. “Faggots!”

His stomach dropped, and it only had a little to do with the way he stumbled when the car zipped out from under him. _That word_ and more, he could hear them in Milah’s voice, until Jeff reached out to grab his arm and pull him back onto the sidewalk.

“Forget it,” Jeff told him. “Car full of trash. Probably riddled with disease, anyway. Fucking frat boys.”

Arden shrugged away from him, going back down the block a short way. He walked down to Viv’s star, placing himself next to it.

“You’re in a thin-skinned mood tonight,” Jefferson observed as he followed, cramming his hands down into his tight pockets as best he could.

Ignoring his roommate, Arden watched people pass by and working girls pace on the sidewalk across the street. Car after car paused there, many of them taking one of the girls with them when they drove away. He watched for the girls to walk back after a while, worse for the wear but alive. That was just about the best they could hope for, any of them. He and Jeff didn’t get as much traffic here as they might have in certain other places, but it was marginally safer on their block.

He frowned when he realized they’d spent an hour and a half more without a proposition. “It’s a slow night,” he grumbled, worrying more and more about the rent the longer the evening went on.

“He speaks.” Jeff feigned shock from where he leaned against a nearby tree jutting up from the concrete. “I was talking to Cora earlier…”

Arden’s frown carved itself deeper and he shot Jeff a sharp look.

Jeff soldiered on despite the glare he received. “She’s willing to get work for us.”

“We don’t need a pimp, Jefferson. Least of all that one.”

“We wouldn’t have to stand out here, wouldn’t have to deal with nights with no business,” Jeff rationalized. “It might even be safer with her name protecting us. And she’s only asking seventy-”

Arden looked at his roommate, questioning just how much sense Jeff had. As if Jefferson hadn’t heard the rumors about Cora’s girls and boys disappearing when they displeased her, or the horrors she advertised them for. The fact that she had her own daughter working for her was terrifying in its own right.

“No,” he snipped, and there was no room for discussion in the way he said it.

He didn’t understand why they kept going back to this, knowing all they knew about Cora. On top of the stories that went around, Jeff had his own history with her. She’d been the one who had reported him to DCFS and had his daughter taken away when he got on her bad side. It was before Arden knew him, but it tended to come up when Jeff was drunk.

Jefferson pulled a face, but he nodded. “You’re right. Just the two of us, we get to make our own decisions,” he said, but his heart didn’t seem in it.

It was a false sense of control, Arden knew, but even the illusion of control was better than admitting how little they really had. 

Another half hour went by, and the idea that they might make rent seemed more unlikely by the minute. After a car full of teenage girls sped by, the side nearer them crowded with laughing faces and pointing fingers, he reached up to touch his wig.

“I look like an idiot,” he muttered, turning to face the dark window of the laundromat behind him to make sure it was still on the right way.

“You do not,” Jeff told him, reaching up to arrange the way the pieces across the front fell. “It looks fine.”

He’d begun wearing it after a customer made a remark about the gray in his hair, saying that it turned her off so much she couldn’t pay him full price. He’d thought he was too young to be going gray, but apparently it was true what they said about stress.

“It makes you look striking. Classy. Like one of those boy bands with a number in the name,” Jeff claimed. He grinned, and the way he tilted his head back, Arden could see the scar on his neck.

It was a gift Jeff had received from a trick about a year ago, and it hurt every time Arden saw it. He remembered all too clearly being scared to death in the waiting room of the charity hospital, when they wouldn’t let him in to see Jeff in the ER or so much as give him an update. The scar was beginning to turn silvery, but he remembered the angry red slice and the stitches that held it together for weeks. The cops hadn’t done anything. Even after a girl a couple of blocks down and a boy who didn’t survive the experience had the same inflicted a few weeks later, no one seemed to care. It was a sentiment constantly driven home - they didn’t matter. They were disposable.

He could hear the car grinding its way down the street from two blocks away, and they watched as it passed them by. The windows were tinted enough that they couldn’t see inside, but the car itself was enough for a solid prediction.

Arden groaned. “Oh, that’s a beautiful piece of machinery he’s murdering.”

“No,” Jeff said, grinning broadly. _“That’s_ rent. Go on, he’s stopped. Don’t take less than two hundred.”

He gave Jeff a doubtful look. “Nobody’s going to pay that much for me.”

“That car? Hell yes, he will. Go!” Jeff told him, giving him a push. “Keep your eyes open and stay safe.”

Arden headed toward the car. He looked back over his shoulder to say, “You, too,” and worried whether Jeff might go back inside with Cora if he left.

Approaching the sports car, he put on his usual swagger, and he waited until the window rolled down to lean on the sill. What he found surprised him out of his usual spiel.

There was a woman in the driver’s seat. A _breathtaking_ woman. This car, he’d expected to find the very definition of ‘mid-life crisis’ sitting behind the wheel. He found himself speechless for a moment. It turned his usual song and dance on its ear, and he didn’t switch gears as smoothly as he’d have liked.

“Hey. Um- hi,” he said, trying to quickly assemble _something._ “Looking for some entertainment for the evening?”

She returned his stare for just as long. “No. Directions. I need directions,” she finally said. “Can you tell me how to get back to Beverly Hills?”

He was actually disappointed. That surprised him as much as - maybe more than - the car’s driver. “Ten bucks, I’ll give you directions anywhere you want to go.”

“Ten dollars?” she squeaked in offense. “For directions? That’s ridiculous.”

“It just went up to twenty,” he said, all charm and what anyone looking at him would assume was a self-assured smile. “Inflation.”

The woman sputtered, bristling as she leaned over into the passenger seat. “You can’t just ask someone for money in exchange for directions. That’s extortion.”

His grin widened at her reaction. “I can do what I like, dearie. _I_ know precisely where I am.”

They simply stared at one another for a good minute, neither breaking stubborn eye contact. Her eyes were the prettiest blue he’d ever seen.

“Fine,” she said, and after hitting a few incorrect buttons, she found the one that unlocked the passenger side door. “Fine. I need help. I’m lost.”

He focused on the feeling he got from her. When you got into the car with someone, you belonged to them. You were at their mercy. She didn’t _seem_ like the type to get a hooker alone with plans to hurt them. But you never really knew. He’d learned that the hard way. More than once.

Arden stood up and waved back at Jeff. “Aren’t we all,” he murmured to himself before he opened the door, sliding into the seat while she rifled through a pretty little clutch. “I’ll take pity on a desperate soul, then.”

“Do you have change for a fifty?” she asked, pulling the bill out of a slim wallet.

“Nope.” Deftly, he slipped the note from between her fingers and tucked it down the front of his waistcoat, grinning when she huffed at him in chagrin. “But for fifty, I’ll be your personal GPS.”

He waved a flourishing hand toward the steering wheel. Fifty dollars and not a genital bared. He was even getting a ride in a Bugatti. Maybe the night was turning around, after all.


	3. Not Something That I Expected

“Well, first things first. You’re headed in the wrong direction,” said the man in the passenger seat as he settled into it. He looked over his shoulder, out the back glass. “There’s nothing coming. Just turn around here.”

Belle did as he said, making the U-turn as quickly as she could. It was in no way neat or practiced, and she tried not to cringe. She kept glancing sidelong at him as she made her way back up Hollywood Boulevard, not doing a great job of hiding how she tried to get a better look at him now that he was inside the car.

“Turn left here, onto Highland,” he said when she got to the end of the block. “Around half a mile down, you’ll want to take a right.”

The man she’d allowed into the car was by no means unattractive. He might not have been stereotypically pretty as, say, Gaston was. And he wasn’t nearly as tall or broad. There was something striking about him, though. When he leaned to look into the car, she’d found herself speechless. His smile and the way he looked at her with such rapt attention made her forget that she could form words.

The rational part of her brain reassured her that his size meant she could probably hold her own in a fight, if she was forced to. At least for long enough to get help.

He hadn’t really looked at her since getting in. He’d been staring at the dashboard with interest, fingers fidgeting as though he wanted to touch the buttons and held himself back. She took the opportunity to steal a look here and there. His hair appeared dyed, the severe, ink black that it was. She couldn’t be sure, though, in the shop lights and street lamps that flickered through the windows. The way he dressed was a bit odd, but no more than the others like him on the street. She supposed he had to garner attention somehow. 

“Right here,” he said suddenly, glancing between her and the road. “Onto Fountain, then go for two miles.”

Belle signaled and turned, and the car made another of those noises that grated at her nerves. 

“Blasted thing,” she muttered, frowning. _“So_ temperamental.”

“It isn’t yours?” Arden gathered.

The driver’s seat was adjusted just a bit too far back for her small stature, the wheel tilted too high. He wasn’t surprised that she had so much trouble driving it. She could barely reach the pedals, the way she sat.

Unable to keep his hands off any longer, he reached to turn the radio on. He wanted to soak it in while he could. Some terrible pop song poured through the speakers and he took the liberty of switching it to a local station.

“Not exactly,” Belle said, more than a little distracted when he started fiddling with the radio.

His hands were nice, she noticed. There was a little stray polish here and there on his nails, but his hands were clean and well kept, his fingernails pared close. His fingers were long and tapered, and she couldn’t help appreciating them.

He grinned. “Not exactly yours, but not stolen.”

“Certainly not. Borrowed,” she clarified, even the insinuation that she could be suspected of stealing it not sitting well with her.

Arden cringed as she touched one of the paddles in an attempt to shift, groaning in dismay as she made the gears grind yet again. She stopped at a red light. At least she could brake smoothly.

Belle turned her hands where she held onto the steering wheel, feeling awkwardness fall on the silence despite the radio. “So, are you going to introduce yourself?” she asked. “What’s your name?”

He looked squarely at her, a sultry mask overtaking his honest expression of enjoyment in the car ride. “My name is whatever you want it to be, dearie,” he said sweetly.

She shot a frown over at him, giving him a scolding look for his clichéd answer.

“All right, how about this, then? A compromise,” he suggested. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Arden was a bit startled to find himself _charmed_ when she rolled her eyes at him.

“Come on,” he cajoled, singsonging, “play along…”

Belle sighed, considering what was so likely that he would play a guessing game with her. “Lance.”

“Two left.” He pointed through the windshield. “The light’s turned green.”

“Peter?” she guessed as she moved her foot to the gas again.

He snorted a laugh. “I’m sensing a trend. But, no. God, no.”

Belle smiled as he caught on. “Richard?”

“Don’t you mean _‘Dick’_?” he said, leaning closer and giving her a lascivious little grin.

“I guessed three times,” she pointed out, prompting him on his own game.

“All right,” he gave, deciding she had lived up to his challenge the way he’d set it. “Arden.”

“Arden?”

“Arden Gold,” he told her, watching for her response.

The glance she gave him was rather skeptical. “Seriously?”

“Absolutely serious.”

“Arden Gold. That’s…” Her brows rose with her smile.

He felt like shrinking back, but he steeled himself, freezing his smile on his face. “What? Appropriate for my vocation? It’s not suggestive enough to be a stripper name.”

“It’s s nice name,” Belle said when she realized that he really wasn’t putting her on. “It has a pretty ring to it.”

“Turn here, onto La Cienega. You’ll have to pay attention - it’s less than half a mile to your next turn,” he said, and she saw him grab for the grip on the door when she took a left. “What hotel are you staying at?”

“What?” she asked quickly, her frown returning.

“I only mean I’ll guide you there.” Her reaction didn’t surprise him. She was probably afraid he’d break in, come after her, some such as that. “I’m not asking for your room number. Just the hotel.”

“Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills,” she finally told him.

He gave an impressed whistle. “Well, the car will fit right in. All right, here, turn here, onto Santa Monica.”

“You keep making that face,” Belle pointed out after she shifted gears again. 

“It’s a beautiful machine. The Veyron is _the_ hypercar. W6 engine. The front and rear are held together by naught but fourteen bolts. Only three hundred were made,” he said. “And it sounds as if you’re murdering it.”

Belle didn’t know why she felt she should apologize. “I don’t drive much…”

He hummed in agreement.

She eyed him, irritated. “Have _you_ ever driven one of these?”

“No,” he replied, feeling a little chastised for remarking on her driving.

“Could you handle the paddles?” she asked. “Do you drive stick?”

Arden smirked over at her. “Sometimes.”

It took a second for his innuendo to register. She rolled her eyes again. “I mean, would you like to drive this thing before the transmission falls out of it?”

“Right now?” He looked at her as if she’d proposed marriage.

Belle checked the side and rearview mirrors before she pulled over to the side of the road. “Right now.”

He’d never jumped out of a car so quickly in his life. Arden slid into the driver’s seat as soon as she was out of it, running his hands over the steering wheel and admiring the instrument panel until she got back in. When she’d clicked her seatbelt into place, he put the car in drive and took off, reaching once more to shift the car into manual mode.

He glanced over at her again with a bit of a grimace. “What if we get pulled over?”

“We won’t get pulled over,” Belle told him confidently. She knew Zelena, and Zelena probably had an in with every cop within a hundred miles. She was rather certain they wouldn’t pull the car over no matter what it did. “You know a lot about cars?”

“No, not a lot. A bit. Just enough to be dangerous.” He flicked his fingers against the right paddle and the engine made an absolutely _pleasant_ sound.

From the passenger’s seat, freed from having to pay attention to the road, she could see his face better. The joy written all over it - all over this stranger’s expression - struck some strange chord in her. The intensity in him, in the way he attached himself to the moment, it felt to her as though he hadn’t had happiness of any real sort in a very long time. She wondered, had he truly had so little?

“How?” she asked after a moment.

Arden debated with himself before telling her the truth. There wasn’t much harm in telling her, he decided. He’d probably never see her again after they found her hotel.

“My father,” he said. “He liked to buy junkers, take them apart, fix them up passably, sell them at a profit. It’s how we lived. I helped where I could.”

He’d loathed it. They had barely gotten by, and sometimes didn’t at all. There were the months where his father’s scams were caught and they had to leave town with the clothes on their backs. They’d been in such bad shape that his father was sending him to sell plasma there toward the end.

Arden shrugged a shoulder. “Suppose I keep up with cars out of habit.”

“Where was this?” Belle asked. The more she got him to speak, the more his accent tickled her ears. 

“Glasgow,” he said, shifting again. He could feel the engine’s change in his bones, and his smile broadened. “East end.”

When he was in the clear, no cars in his path, he floored it. A thrill went through his stomach and they were pushed back into the seats. She yelped and her hands shot out, one clinging to the door armrest and the other grabbing onto his shoulder.

Belle tried to continue the small talk, such as it was. “So, um… What kind of money do you make?” 

He hesitated, glancing over at her a couple of times before he fell into the business patter. “Can’t take less than two hundred. For the whole vanilla thing, for an hour. Kink is more, depending on how much it hurts.”

Arden made a left onto Doheny, taking the corner without slowing down, and she yelped again.

“For an _hour?”_ She gaped at him. “You charge two hundred for an hour, but you have a button hanging off?”

His smile lost some of its wattage. He chanced a quick look down. At least it wasn’t the button he’d repaired. “Street corners aren’t what they used to be. There are internet ads, Craigslist. Lot of competition out there for a street whore,” he said resentfully.

They approached the hotel. Now that they were closer, Belle remembered more about the way she’d been driven out.

“Here it is,” she said, but he didn’t slow down. “Here it is,” she told him more loudly. “Arden! It’s right here!”

“I know,” he responded, perfectly calm, and he whipped the wheel around as they approached the front of the building. He hit the brakes, skidding perfectly into place right in front of the entrance columns before turning a grin on her. “These tires grip the road like _claws.”_

Belle gaped at him again, wide-eyed. She laughed in shock. The valet stepped up to the car, seemingly unfazed, and opened her door.

Arden got out and walked to the passenger side. He looked around a little, feeling lost again, and it wasn’t in the geographical sense. She was staring at him funny.

“Well. Here you are,” he said. “Safe and sound.”

She tucked her clutch under her arm. “Will you be all right?”

“What, me?” Arden smiled for her. “I’ll be fine. Going to use my GPS money for a cab.”

Belle wasn’t certain what it was that made her not want to part company with him so soon. “You’re sure?”

“Absolutely,” Arden lied, taking a step away from her and the car.

“Thank you for the directions. And for the drive, even if it does feel like I’ve left my stomach somewhere back on Santa Monica,” she said, laughing a little.

“Anytime.” She had such a pretty laugh. Infectious, too, he discovered from the way his heart lightened in response. He nodded - and _why_ did he feel so awkward? 

Belle took a step back toward the hotel. “It was nice meeting you,” she said, feeling a distinct urge to invite him up and trying to get away from it.

His smile changed, no longer a part of his mask. “You, too…”

She turned away, making herself walk toward the doors.

Something made her turn back. She found him sitting on the curb, knees pulled up and arms folded between his legs and body. He looked small. And sad. 

_Forlorn,_ her mind supplied without her asking.

She couldn’t leave him there. He’d been so nice. He was decent company, he had a sense of humor that she appreciated. Perhaps she could take him upstairs just long enough to get him something to eat and let him get warm.

“I thought you were going to get a taxi?” she asked.

Arden jumped a little and looked back at her with wide eyes. When he recovered enough to look more casual, he shrugged. “None around. I’ll catch the bus. I like the bus ride, anyway,” he lied again.

She walked back over to him and he turned his face away from her, leaning to look for the bus that, if there were any justice in the world, would have pulled up at this moment so that he could get away and forget about this woman before she seared herself into his mind.

She didn’t speak again right away, and he thought she’d left before she said, “Two hundred dollars for an hour, right? That’s what you said?”

His head whipped back around in surprise. Had she really asked? “That’s right.”

“Well, I was thinking,” she went on. “If you aren’t hurrying to get to an appointment, perhaps you would accompany me upstairs? I haven’t had dinner yet, and I hate to eat alone.”

Arden eyed her for a moment, just staring as he tried to make the decision quickly. He was used to making this kind of decision. One look, a feeling, and deciding whether it was safe enough to get into a car or walk into an alley. It was part of the work. Always the work.

But he looked at this woman and… he _wanted_ to go upstairs with her. That was new.

He shouldn’t have wanted to. Getting attached to anyone was the surest way to being hurt, and that kind of pain was so much worse than anything a trick could do to him. It was two hundred dollars, though. He could do that. One hour. One hour was nothing. She couldn’t get into his head in an hour.

Arden smiled and got to his feet.


	4. Like a Mirrored Image

“So,” he said, swinging his arms in front of him to clap his hands together before letting them drop to his sides again. “Since you know _my_ name…?”

She thought she saw the slightest wince cross his face when he stepped up onto the curb again, but he fell into stride right next to her. 

“Belle,” she introduced herself to him. “Belle French.”

“Beautiful name,” he said with a smile. “Fitting.”

She couldn’t help but wonder how many women he’d given the same line. Belle reached to curl her hand around his elbow, and she was a bit surprised when he responded properly, bending his arm for her.

They walked into the hotel and Arden very nearly staggered in awe. It was _massive._

“Jesus,” he breathed. He had to remind himself to close his mouth. Just the furniture in the foyer probably cost more than his and Jeff’s entire apartment building.

Arden suddenly wasn’t sure what to do. He didn’t belong there. He felt as though he were getting the place dirty simply by standing in it. People were turning to look at him as they walked by, and he felt all the more out of place. He wished he could drop through the marble floor and run back to the bus stop. What was he thinking, taking her up on her proposition? Money or not, he was a fool to walk into a place like this.

“It’s all right. Come on,” Belle said quietly. She tugged at his arm, which had gone lax in her grip.

He fell back into character, doing his best to ignore the eyes on him. The thumb and forefinger of his right hand rubbed against one another as he tried to push away his nerves.

“Stop fidgeting,” she whispered to him as they approached the front desk.

When she let go of his arm to speak to the blonde woman there, he leaned his shoulder against the column attached to the end of the counter. He crossed his arms loosely over his middle, his posture lank and cocky, the very height of self-assurance.

“I would like my dinner sent up as soon as possible,” Belle said. “Settings for two this evening.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the woman said as she picked up the phone.

Belle lifted her hand to take his arm again and he spun smoothly on his heel to walk next to her.

An older couple stood waiting at the bank of elevators when they walked up, and even with his back to them, Arden could feel their eyes on him. The elevator they stood nearest finally, _finally_ opened, and they stepped inside. The couple continued to watch him, apparently electing not to follow them in. He looked down at Belle’s hand on his arm, finding it very distracting until the doors at last closed.

He resisted the urge to blow air up over his face. His cheeks burned with fluster and anxiety in the alien surroundings, under so many watchful and judging eyes. He hoped that Belle wasn’t too cold natured; he didn’t know if he could stand a sweltering hotel room, too.

“Penthouse,” the elevator attendant - a small Chinese woman with a carefully neutral expression - said as she pressed the button at the top of the panel.

Arden’s eyebrows rose. He looked to Belle. “Penthouse?”

She simply smiled over at him. His stomach fluttered as the elevator began to climb; he’d never liked nor gotten accustomed to that sensation. When the elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open, he forgot his manners and wandered out before her. 

Belle caught the attendant peering around the frame of the elevator, tilting her head to look at Arden’s backside as he headed in the direction of the suite doors. Belle smiled, and the attendant didn’t look terribly ashamed of herself, smiling broadly in return before ducking in again and taking the elevator back down.

To her annoyance, she found her hands shaking as she took the key card from her purse. She tried to rationalize to herself why on earth she’d invited a prostitute up to her hotel room. No matter the peculiar draw she felt to him, or how much she wanted to at least give him a meal before sending him back out, he was still a stranger and a prostitute, and that made her nervous.

Arden waited in front of the set of double doors that led into the suite. Even the hallway was lavishly decorated with spindly antique tables topped with clusters of small vases and sculptures and extravagant flower arrangements. It was a bit less than the foyer, but still imposing. He heard Belle’s footsteps behind him, muffled on the carpet, and he stepped aside to get out of her way so that she could open the door.

The suite was absolutely fucking enormous. Ten of his and Jeff’s apartment could have fit in with room left to spare, easily. He did his best not to gape too hard, but he couldn’t help looking around. Again he felt as if he were going to get something dirty.

He looked to Belle and found her watching him. “Impressive,” he said weakly. That wasn’t even a strong enough word. Everything was far too nice and expensive for him to be around.

She placed her clutch on a desk that faced the balcony doors and sat down there. It was littered with paperwork and stacked on one end with books. _So_ many books. 

Arden walked through to the balcony. Like everything else, the view was amazing. It looked out over the city, lights twinkling, and it was as if there were stars above and below. He leaned his hands on the banister and, without thinking, he looked down.

He reeled back immediately and turned, scrambling inside.

“What’s the matter?” Belle asked when he came hurrying in. He’d gone a bit pale.

“It’s high,” he said sheepishly.

“It is the penthouse.”

“I’m, uh…” He looked back at the balcony and took a couple of steps farther into the room. “I’m not great with heights.”

“You can close the doors, if that would make you more comfortable,” she offered.

“No. That’s all right.” Arden stepped over to her desk. She simply sat and opened her mail as he watched.

He admired her - the way she sat, her legs crossed at the ankle and tucked carefully to one side, her prim posture, the almost brutal way she cut open her mail with quick slices of a delicate silver letter opener. She was the picture of elegance, and he was left bewildered about why the hell she’d invited him up. He couldn’t imagine her having something like him sullying her bed.

“What is it you plan to do with me?” he asked, soaking his voice with put-on provocativeness. “Now that you have me up here.”

“Honestly?” Belle didn’t look up. She opened a couriered contract from someone’s company lawyer and skimmed it before placing it at the top of the ‘important’ pile.

He took another step closer to her. “Honestly.”

“I plan to feed you,” she told him. “After that, I’m not precisely sure. I hadn’t really planned company to be a part of my evening.”

“You said you hate eating alone,” he reminded her.

She smiled up at him. “I do.”

“Two hundred dollars to watch me eat dinner?” He laughed, but it didn’t sound terribly comfortable. “Not the worst night I’ve had.”

Belle went back to her mail. Her e-mail could do with being checked, as well. She had a few minutes before the food should arrive. That gave her time to weed through the spam that had inevitably snuck through, at least.

Arden’s fingers fidgeted in the silence. “You could pay me.”

She looked up again. “Oh. Now?”

“Well, break the ice, get it out of the way.” Though, he did prefer to get money up front when he could. Too many times he’d been cheated out of his payment one way or another.

She reached for her clutch. “All right, then. Do you take check? Credit card?”

Arden gave her a blank look. Did she really expect-

“I- I’m kidding,” she told him with a grin. “I believe cash is customary in these situations, is it not?”

“Yeah,” he said slowly, returning her smile once the joke sank in.

She separated ten twenties from a sheaf of bills in her slender, single-fold wallet and held them out to him.

Arden leaned his bottom against the edge of her desk and took the money, folded it twice, and slid it into one of his small waistcoat pockets. He then reached down into the front of it, pulling out a couple of condoms at a time and going back for more. 

“I have a nice variety. Condoms, dental dams. Latex and silicone, just in case. There are some decent flavors, particularly in the dams. Strawberry crush, blueberry blast, vanilla bean, mint tingle - those are great. They have this cooling sensation,” he said, his nose wrinkling with his smile. “Banana-rama, chocolate temptation…”

His voice had dropped a little lower, and Belle _felt_ the way he looked at her. She swallowed hard.

“Arden?” she said.

“I have a grape one.” He looked down into the front of his waistcoat as best he could. “Must have fallen down. It’ll show up when I take my clothes off.”

They’d all come from the Sisters of St. Meissa Free Clinic on Selma. The tiny receptionist, Astrid, gave him a pharmacy bag half filled with various prophylactics every time he went in.

He sorted through another few as he pulled them out. “The flavored condoms are good for penetrative sex _if_ that’s what you opt for. But I have textured ones. Ribbed, studded, dotted, ribbed _and_ dotted, super intense ribbed, diagonally ribbed-”

Belle spoke more sharply to stop him. “Arden!”

He looked up at her with such an innocently startled expression on his face that she felt badly for yelling. She felt heat creep into her cheeks. She’d never used condoms with flavors. Or textures, for that matter. Suddenly nervous at simply the idea of doing anything intimate with this stranger, she pushed her desk chair back and stood. She’d never intended on that, and now she couldn’t get the thought out of her head. Belle felt suddenly too warm despite the cool evening and open balcony doors.

“I, um-” She cleared her throat. “I don’t suppose it matters?”

“Ready to get to it, then?” He gave her a toothy smile, and she saw the moment the personality flicked away from his face again, something utterly artificial obscuring him. His hands fell to his trousers. “Won’t take me a minute to get ready.”

“No!” She reached out to grab his hands. He pulled them away, looking up at her in confusion. “I mean, no. You don’t have to- we- not yet. Dinner will be here soon. And we should talk.”

Arden nodded, planting the heels of his hands on the desk’s edge at either side of his hips. “Talking is fine.”

Lots of people wanted to talk. Sometimes all they did was talk. Those were usually the best customers, if what they wanted to talk about didn’t get too disturbing. Money for just providing a little company? Easy.

She stepped back and he pushed away from her desk, following when she walked over to the sofa. When she sat, he perched on the wide ottoman nearby, stretching his legs out and leaning back with his hands to catch him. 

“Are you here on business?” he asked when she didn’t broach a topic of conversation. “Vacation?”

“Business. Always business, neverending,” she said, turning sideways to better face him.

“What do you-” he began, then held his hand up. “No, wait. Let me have a guess.”

She’d opened her mouth to answer and closed it when he began giving her an appraising look. He considered her. Lawyer? Actress? Some kind of designer? She was quick and sharp-witted, and wealthy enough to afford a penthouse suite for who knew how long. None of the possibilities he imagined felt right.

“Stockbroker?” he finally guessed despite feeling that wasn’t quite it, either.

Belle laughed, the sound throaty and honestly amused, and he smiled at her. It was a lovely smile. Heartfelt. “No, I don’t have the gambler’s sensibilities to be a stockbroker. I-”

The doorbell chimed its little tune and Arden startled upright.

“It’s only dinner,” she said, placing her hand on his arm for a moment before she stood. “Room service.”

He exhaled something like a laugh. He’d run on an undercurrent of anxiety for as long as he could remember, and he didn’t know whether it was the problem with rent or Cora, but he felt jumpier than usual tonight.

“I’ll answer,” he offered, standing and darting away before he could make more a fool of himself. Arden let the waiter with the room service cart in, then realized he had no idea what to tell the man. He looked to Belle, relieved when the waiter did the same.

“Where shall I put it, Ms. French?” the waiter asked.

“On the table, please,” she directed, gesturing toward the dining area. “The far end, there.”

The man walked through, pushing the cart along in front of him, and transferred everything to the table before wheeling the cart aside and out of the way. Turning, he looked from Belle to Arden, simply standing there.

Belle stepped away and Arden imagined that he saw judgement in the other man’s eyes. He bridled. “I was invited,” he said. “For _dinner.”_

When Belle returned, she held out a twenty for the waiter. He’d been waiting for a tip.

“Thank you,” the man said, giving her a polite nod before leaving the suite.

Embarrassed, Arden went straight over to the table while Belle closed her laptop and put her purse away.

“You know…” he said when she came over. “You know, I’m a pretty sure bet, here. Not that it isn’t appreciated, but you don’t have to feed me.”

He lifted one of the silver dish covers. The smell made his stomach growl as though he hadn’t eaten for days.

Belle sighed, going to stand behind the chair at the head of the table. She rested her hands on the back of it. “If something does happen - and I’m _not_ saying that it will - how do I know you’re safe? Clean?”

Without hesitation, he reached into his back pocket and slid out a thin, beaten leather wallet. It had very little in it. There was his identification, apartment key, and a photograph of his son, though no money. A piece of paper had been folded small and tucked into the space behind the photo pocket. He unfolded it and held it out to her.

“I go for testing once a month,” he said, the words rehearsed and oft repeated. “I haven’t had any form of sex without protection in five years. Those are my newest results. Got them in the mail three days ago.”

“How many people have you been with since then?” she asked, opening the paper up.

“Two,” he answered. It had been a slow week, which was why they were scraping by on a loaf of bread and what could be begged, borrowed, or gleaned from the bar.

Belle looked carefully over the results before handing the creased paper back to him. She watched as he re-folded it and tucked it away again. “You keep that with you? Always?”

“The newest I have.” He nodded as he slipped his wallet back into his pocket. “You never know who’ll ask. Lots of people do these days. Present company, for example.”

“That’s quite considerate.”

“It’s necessary. Can’t afford to lose customers.” Arden pulled out the chair across the corner from her and sat down. “So, do you have a husband? A boyfriend?”

“My _ex-_ boyfriend is currently moving out of our loft back in New York. Or he’d better be,” Belle added with a bit of a grumble.

He felt as if he’d stepped in it yet again. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She waved his apology away. “It’s better to sever a relationship that makes one or the other unhappy than to force it for sole virtue of simply being with someone.”

“I suppose,” he said noncommittally, not frowning only because he was aware enough to school it away.

Belle looked at him for a moment before pulling her own chair out and sitting. Taking the bottle of rosé from the glacette next to her setting, she opened it and poured their glasses.

“I don’t want to be with someone because they feel obligated, or because they feel as if they’ve put too much into the relationship to quit,” she clarified. “If I’m with someone, I want it to be out of love.”

Arden regarded her with a shade of disbelief as she shook open her napkin and spread it across her lap. “You’re looking for fairy tales. People don’t love like that in reality.”

“Maybe so,” Belle said, looking up at him as she ran her fingertips up the stem of her wine glass. She shifted her gaze back to its contents before lifting it to her lips, thinking to herself, _The right person would._


	5. More Than a Touch

Arden’s belly hadn’t been so full in… Well, in longer than he could remember. It dropped a lovely, drowsy haze over him. He poked the last bite of a shiveringly rich tiramisu into his mouth, wishing that he could take some of everything back for Jeff and feeling a little guilty that he couldn’t.

He sat forward, sipping from the wine that Belle had poured for him. He’d barely made a difference in the level of the glass, but he didn’t want to insult her. A half dozen sips to wet his mouth over the course of such a large meal wouldn’t hurt him, he decided. It hadn’t even been enough to give him a buzz.

“Is it all right if I use your bathroom?” he asked as he pushed his chair back. He needed to splash his face, and he could come back alert and ready for whatever she wanted.

“Sure. It’s just outside the entryway, to your right.” She pressed her napkin to her lips and smiled up at him as he stepped away from the table.

Belle reached over, taking her guest’s silverware from next to his plate and placing them on top of it. She fussed with her own used setting, neatening it to make it easier for housekeeping to clean up.

Her day had been a strange one. Breaking up with her boyfriend of three years, effectively stranding herself in the middle of the city, picking up a prostitute. She found herself reluctant to ask Arden to leave, though. It couldn’t _hurt_ to ask him to stay a little longer. She’d paid for an hour of his company, after all, and they were barely halfway into that.

She was considering paying for a second hour when she heard the toilet flush. The sink tap went on and off, and the door clicked open. She looked over as he peered out at her.

“I’ll be back in a minute. Just tending to things,” he told her before ducking back into the washroom, leaving the door ajar. The water began running again.

Before she lost her nerve, she called to him, “What do you think of watching TV for a while?”

The pause before he answered was a few beats longer than she expected. It gave her time to second guess herself.

“I can’t hear,” he finally responded. “Give me a minute?”

Belle stood and brushed down the front of her dress in the event of errant crumbs. She went through to the guest washroom and pushed the door farther open, thinking nothing of doing so.

He startled, his hand jumping to hide behind his back. She regarded him with amused surprise for a second, then glanced to the mirror behind him. There was something held in his closed hand. She could see the blunt, white end of something sticking out from the curl of his pinky finger in the reflection. The smile fell from her lips as her eyes interpreted it as the plunger of a syringe.

“No,” she snapped, walking right in. “You’ve had dinner, you have your money, and now you can get out. I won’t have drugs in my hotel room.” 

She took hold of his sleeve and pulled him toward the door. In truth, she was almost relieved to have a reason to throw him out, disconcerted as she was by how very tempted she’d been to ask him to stay longer. 

Arden’s mouth dropped open in shock. Drugs? Where the hell had that come from?

“What? No, n-no, no,” he stammered, caught between pulling away from her in anger at her accusation and trying to make her see. He held his open hand out to her. “It’s a toothbrush!”

Belle froze, looking down. “A toothbrush,” she echoed.

It was. He held the business end of a travel toothbrush. A bit of hotel issue toothpaste smeared across his fingers where he’d already applied it to the bristles when she burst in on him. The holder half of it sat on the counter next to the sink, a hollow piece of glittery red and gold plastic.

“The shrimp p- p-” His brow drew in distress.

“Shrimp primavera,” she supplied weakly.

“It was full of garlic and flecks of parsley,” he explained, closing his hand around the brush again.

“Of course. Yes. Of course you’d want to brush your teeth.” Belle shook her head, letting go of his sleeve. “I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

“You thought it was- what?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Belle said, feeling silly. “Something to be injected?”

He gave her a lopsided smile. “Never fell in with that.”

She nodded, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth again. It was different from the smiles she’d been giving him over most of the evening, though - a bit unguarded, this one.

“What?” he asked again.

“Nothing.” She only looked at him for a moment. “You surprise me.”

“Is that good?”

Her smile made it as far as her eyes. “It’s new.”

Arden looked at her in a bit of surprise of his own as she turned away, closing the door behind her. 

She’d moved to the living room area when he went out. The bottle of wine and their glasses sat on the end table next to her and she held her phone to her ear. The television was on, turned to some sappy little holiday movie, but the lamp had been switched off. The TV’s slight flicker and the light in the entryway were all that illuminated the room. 

From her tone, he decided she must be talking business. He bothered her as little as possible, gesturing toward the minibar with a questioning look. She nodded, waving him toward it with a smile.

She covered the lower half of the phone to whisper, “Anything you like.”

Opting out of wine again, he took a bottle of chocolate milk that was undoubtedly expensive, touting itself as being made with Belgian chocolate. Arden pulled a few more things from the cooled minibar drawer before going back to Belle, sitting down on the floor between her and the television. He spread everything out, starting in on a sample box of chocolates as he listened to her talk.

She spoke another language. Japanese, maybe? He thought he recognized the sound of a word here and there, passingly familiar with the cadence through the elderly couple who owned the all-night bodega down from his and Jeff’s apartment. He wondered again what she did for a living.

Arden ate his way through the half dozen truffles in the little brown and gold box while he split his attention between listening to her and watching the end of a movie that seemed to be about a woman and two children pretending that a house was theirs while being on the run from someone. The credits had just begun rolling up the screen when Belle finished her call.

“All right,” she said with a sigh, tossing her phone to the other side of the sofa. She leaned into the corner and pushed her shoes off. They fell to the thick, plush carpet with a pair of soft _thump_ s. “That should be the end of business for the night.”

“Is it?” Arden asked, grinning up at her. He screwed the lid back onto his drink, becoming more attentive. “Ready to get down to _business,_ then?”

“You keep worrying about getting it over with,” she observed.

“We only have-” He looked to the ridiculously ornate clock on the wall above her head. “Fifteen minutes. So, if you want me to do it right?”

Belle nodded, her mind easily making itself up in the moment. “All right.”

He knelt up, reaching for his zipper again.

She lifted a hand in gesture to stop him, laughing. “What I mean is, stop worrying over it. How much for your company all night?”

 _“All_ night?” Arden asked warily. He’d never been asked to stay with anyone all night.

 _The rent._ He could get the rent in one fell swoop. If the amount didn’t scare her off.

“All night,” she repeated.

He gave her a tentative suggestion. “From now ’til, let’s say, seven?”

Belle nodded. “That right.”

He stopped before he could give her his price. It was too much to ask for. When was the last time he’d made so much in a single night? Never. He and Jeff together had never made that much.

 _No rent, no roof,_ a traitorous little voice reminded him. _“No rent, being at Cora’s mercy. No rent, no choices._

“I’ll give you a discount.” Arden searched her face, trying to judge whether she was more likely to simply laugh at him or kick him out. “Seven hundred?”

“Seven hundred,” she agreed. “Now, can you stop dwelling on it?”

Arden nodded dumbly, sinking back down to the carpet. He hadn’t expected her to agree so readily. Or at all. He’d thought he would have to argue, lower his price a time or two. She hadn’t batted an eyelash, though, and it stunned him a bit.

“Are you going to finish your wine?” she asked, taking her own glass and drawing a sip from it.

He shook his head, reaching for the bottle of chocolate milk and holding it up. “This is fine. I don’t really drink.”

“Oh. Oh, no, you should have told me. I’d have had them bring something non-alcoholic up.” She looked over at the bottle, pinching her lower lip between her teeth.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, shrugging. “It didn’t hurt.”

“Do you mind it if I ask questions? Curiosity,” Belle explained, watching him in return. He gave her a nod and she considered her phrasing, not wishing to offend on a potentially sensitive subject. “You like women?”

“Oh, I _like_ women.” He smirked, smoothly bringing seduction back into his voice as he looked her up and down.

“I’m serious. Do you sleep with women solely for money, or are you orientated toward women?”

“And I’m serious. I like women.”

“And men?” she asked.

His smirk faded slowly, hesitating as if unsure of himself. “I… don’t dislike men.”

Belle tilted her head, considering him. He imitated her and cocked his head the same way. She wondered if he’d actually had time to sort out his own sexuality before he wound up on a street corner. The thought made her sad. 

Arden broke away from her gaze, picking at the plastic sticker on the bottle he held. He and Milah had gotten together young, and he’d taken it for granted that they’d be together forever, Pollyanna that he had been in those years. He supposed it didn’t even matter, now. Money was money.

“And you, Ms. French?” he asked in return, working on a recovery. A veneer of lascivity dripped from his words. “Do you like men?”

“I do.” She grinned down at him. “Quite a lot, matter of fact.”

“And _women?”_ he continued, giving the question back to her.

It was Belle who hesitated this time.

“Oh, really?” Arden said in her silence, his smile broadening.

“I- she-” Belle blushed, and even amid his insinuations and attempts at seduction, it was the first time he’d seen her do so.

He turned one hand palm up on his knee and beckoned his fingers at her in a wave, encouraging her to come forth with it.

“My college roommate,” she finally admitted.

“College roommate?” He lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, my. How stereotypical.”

“No, it- it wasn’t a-” Belle sputtered. She wasn’t embarrassed so much as flustered. “It was very serious while it lasted.”

He dropped his teasing. “How long?”

“Senior year, then all of graduate school. Helina Keiju,” she murmured, taking a longer drink from her glass. She hadn’t said the name in years, and having it brought to mind twice in one day stung. Not wanting to get into the entire mess, Belle boiled it down. “She went back to Finland after getting her master’s.”

“I didn’t mean-” Arden sighed. The look on her face made him sorry that he’d made light of it. He leaned forward and wrapped his fingers gently around her ankle, feeling the fine texture of her stocking. “It wasn’t my intention to make you uncomfortable. Or to bring up bad memories.”

Belle gave him a smile. “I know. They aren’t bad, most of them. Only very far away.”

She didn’t make a move, didn’t further the conversation, so he left them in the quiet and waited for her. After all, they had the entire night, now. When her attention shifted back to the wine in her glass, Arden took his hand back. He turned to lay down on his stomach, watching the enormous flatscreen mounted on the wall.

Belle pulled in a deep breath, doing her best to brush the memories away. She’d had more than enough of that for the night. She looked down at her guest. He was enjoying himself so, eating from a ten-dollar packet of yogurt covered gummies, giggling himself silly over the first few chaotic minutes of what appeared to be a family Christmas movie. His sock feet twitched behind him on the carpet, his shoes set side-by-side beneath the end table. She smiled, startled to find herself growing fond of him somehow, this absolute stranger whom she’d let into her hotel room and life.

Whom she was _paying_ to be there, she reminded herself. It wasn’t a date. She’d picked him up on the street. He seemed to be enjoying himself, though, lying there on the floor like a kid. His laugh created a warm, comfortable sensation through the middle of her, and she couldn’t help but stare at him and be glad she’d stopped.

Arden laughed, and it was so loud that it surprised him. Suddenly self-conscious, he glanced over at Belle and found her watching him closely. She didn’t look away when he met her eyes, and he thought maybe it was time.

He sat up, shuffled the couple of feet over to her on his knees, and reached for the remote to mute the TV. Concentrating on her face, he made certain she was okay with it as he nudged her knees gently apart.

Arden had learned over the years that many women were easily pressured when they’d paid for it - paid for _him_ \- and he didn’t want that. He’d had it taken from him before, even despite beginning encounters as a willing participant. For a given definition of ‘willing.’ It made him all the more careful that he didn’t do anything that might coerce anyone, particularly his women customers.

Belle set her glass aside and smiled, curious of him as he insinuated himself to kneel between her feet. With her legs open, she felt exposed, but the way he looked at her… She couldn’t find fear or distrust among the emotions that ran through her, even when his hands ran up her thighs, pushing the skirt of her dress around her hips.

“All right?” Arden asked under his breath. He raised his eyebrows in question and she nodded at him in return. She reached out to touch his hair and he hoped that she didn’t pull at it; he didn’t particularly want it slipping off just now.

Belle felt a grin pulling at her mouth, and she dialed it back as much as she could. She knew for certain now that the stark black hair was a wig. She was wondering why in heaven’s name he wore the thing, when he spoke again.

His voice was still soft when he asked her, “What do you want?’

She shook her head. How did you request something like that from someone like him and not feel like you were taking some kind of advantage? “I don’t know.”

Arden smiled. “I’ll do anything,” he said, and he meant it. For one night that would pay his rent for the next month? Hell yes, he meant it. For the most part. “Caveat. I don’t kiss. Not on the mouth.”

“No kissing,” she agreed with a small nod. “I understand.”

He leaned close - close enough that he _could have_ kissed her - and whispered, “Can you think of something you want, Belle?”

She swallowed to hide her uncertainty. “Hands?” she finally asked. She’d admired his hands earlier in the evening. It sounded as good as anything. “Use your fingers?”

Arden nodded, unexpectedly breathing her in before he sat back again. 

Her perfume was all honey and roses, so warm off her skin as it filled his senses, and it tugged at something inside him. He’d smelled all manner of perfumes and colognes, and he was fairly sure at guessing which were which by now, but he had never smelled anything like her.

Arden opened his hands wide and stroked them across the tops of her thighs, toward the outside. He slid his splayed fingers up, gathering her dress to her waist as he searched out the thin waistband of her pantyhose. He’d wondered if she might wear the classic sort of stockings, but apparently practicality won out with this lady. She hadn’t been lying when she told him that she was in town for business. Her wardrobe wasn’t that of a woman who expected sexual attention this evening. 

He curled his fingertips into the waistband and his knuckles skimmed the sides of her plain cotton panties underneath as he carefully dragged her pantyhose down. They were undoubtedly expensive, same as everything else in her outfit. Twisting himself slightly one way and then the other, he pulled them down and off her toes, freeing her legs before returning his hands to her skin. He moved them slowly up her thighs again, going after her panties this time. Her lips parted and her eyes dropped closed for a moment as he drew her underwear down her hips, and he knew that he was doing well.

Belle helped once her panties were around her ankles, lifting her feet to get out of them. She had the urge to cover herself. Her face heated, this time in a wave of anxious shyness, and there was the urge to hide that, too. He must have noticed her flush, because he paused, his hands resting in wide swaths of warmth across the tops of her thighs.

“Do you want to stop?” Arden asked. Not everyone went through with it, few and far between as those customers were.

“No, I-” Belle said quickly, “Keep going, please.”

He dropped his attention from her face, looking down at her body. The dark auburn curls between her legs were neatened, but she wasn’t clean shaven. Most of the women he’d been subject to perform activities of this sort with, they shaved completely or trimmed close. Occasionally there was a novelty shape. Even Milah had eventually begun shaving herself after they moved here, as infrequently as they were together. Though, he’d learned that it certainly wasn’t him she’d begun grooming for. Pleasant nor unpleasant didn’t typically have a place in his business transactions. Not on his side of it. But he found himself interested.

Arden realized how she watched him a bit uneasily for a response. Without waiting any longer, he rested his right palm flat over her abdomen, then ran it down to brush his fingers through her curls. He needed to show her that it was fine, that there was nothing at all wrong.

“Here, slide down a little,” he said, moving his left hand behind her and pressing lightly at the small of her back to guide her into bringing her hips forward. He smiled up at her when she did, her legs opening wider with the movement. “There. Comfortable?”

Belle nodded to him, holding his gaze as he sat back on his heels so that he wasn’t kneeling up so high. She felt the cool air of the room wash over her bare skin - a sharp contrast to the radiating warmth of him between her thighs. There was an urge to curl her legs more closely around him, and she had to push it away.

Opening her labia gently with one hand, Arden looked as casually as possible between her sex and her face so that he didn’t make her self-conscious by staring down for too long. He had to orient himself to her anatomy, though. Not being a fool - not in this, at least - he was well versed in the fact that each woman’s body was different from the next. To not take for granted what lay where was something he’d learned early on.

He stroked the edge of his thumb down her cleft and back up, grazing over the hood of her clit to get an idea of how sensitive she was. When she sighed and shifted a little, he made a more direct pass, drawing a gasp from her. 

Belle had to force her hand away from his hair. She was unsure how long she’d be able to resist closing her fingers around it, and she didn’t want to chance the awkwardness of pulling his wig askew. Her hand fell to his shoulder, fingers skimming over the heavy fabric of his waistcoat until she found a handful of his shirtsleeve. 

She wasn’t sure how it felt so _wonderful._ He’d barely started, barely touched her, but she could feel herself growing wet, her limbs tingling. She pressed her free hand to her stomach, holding onto her skirt gathered there in a fist.

Gauging her response, Arden first slid his fingers lower, gathering wetness, then began massaging in firmer half-circles. He drew the pad of his thumb alongside her clit, below it, and around to the other side before repeating the motion in reverse. A sweet hum came from her on each breath. He felt her hand close more tightly around his sleeve and her foot bumped his leg as she brought it up onto her toes, gaining leverage to tilt her hips into his touch. 

He switched hands, no longer needing to hold her open to him as she became more aroused. His left thumb took over stroking her and he slid his right down, forefinger probing gently at her entrance. She gave a sharper gasp, and he looked up to make certain that her sound was a good one.

 _“Yes,”_ she told him before he could ask, meeting his eyes again. She tugged at his shirt. “Please, there-”

A whimper cut into her words as he slipped his middle and index fingers easily into her. Arden felt her tighten momentarily around his presence. He turned his hand palm up, curling his fingers only a little at first as he withdrew them almost completely, sliding them deeper on the way back in. Though her eyes grew hooded and she became more breathless, she didn’t drop her eyes from his as he worked.

“Still all right?” he asked, and Belle felt his breath ghost over the exposed skin of her belly. 

“God, yes,” she gasped, pulling at his shirtsleeve again to encourage him to keep going.

Arden added his ring finger on an in-stroke, massaging her clit still more firmly, and he _felt_ the moan that he drew from her. She lifted the foot she’d kept balanced on its toes, pulling her leg up to catch her heel on the edge of the sofa cushion. He altered the rhythm of his strokes around her clitoris, making them shorter and more direct, and he changed the motions he made with his hand to imitate a harder thrust.

Belle felt anticipation building inside her. The tingling gave way to a delicious, hot tension in her muscles, curling her toes and pushing her hips forward. She could feel every inch of his long fingers as he slid them in and withdrew them over and over again, pushing her higher. She kept expecting him to move more quickly, to hurry her over the edge and get it done with, but he didn’t. His speed remained consistent; it was the intensity that changed. He put more force behind the thrust of his fingers, his fingertips curling more firmly each time he pulled back. Through the haze of pleasure and need that clouded her thoughts, Belle vaguely understood what he was doing.

Arden watched as she gave in and allowed her head to drop back against the sofa cushion, her eyes squeezing shut. Her mouth dropped half open, her lips moving with every gasp and moan. She came hard around his fingers, curling in on herself as she orgasmed. He felt her clench tightly, almost painfully around him, and he pressed against that spot inside her in waves matching her own rhythm, drawing her orgasm out for as long as he could. It was only when she went limp, the shudders that passed through her dissipating, that he slid his fingers from her. 

Belle missed the presence immediately. “God…” she breathed, too undone to move. After a moment, she felt Arden fixing her clothes. She lifted her head to see as he pulled her dress back down over her thighs. “Thank you.”

He didn’t tell her that there were no thanks necessary, that he’d only done what she’d paid him for. That took people out of the afterglow, sometimes made them feel guilty. It was another thing he’d learned after his first few customers. Arden simply smiled up at her. He leaned to reach for one of the paper napkins next to the picnic he’d made on the carpet behind him. 

“You’re quite welcome,” he told her with a mischievous tilt to his lips as he cleaned her wetness from his hands. Looking down as though he had to concentrate, he allowed the smile to fade while she was distracted.

He still sat between Belle’s feet. She couldn’t have closed her legs just then if she tried, but it didn’t bother her as much as she thought it probably should. He’d ducked his head, and his face was no longer extravagant in its animation. She watched as he wiped his fingers. His motions weren’t hurried - he didn’t behave as if he thought she were dirty. It seemed simply methodical. 

Upon realizing that she still had hold of his sleeve, she gave it a final little tug before letting go. She wondered why he hadn’t just pulled away from her afterward.

“Sit here, with me?” she asked.

Arden neither looked up nor answered her right away. He found himself hard, but it wasn’t unusual. It was a trained response - the result of the headspace he went into to perform the things he did. Sometimes it was less helpful and more of an annoyance, though. With the excuse of attention to cleaning his hands, he searched for a thought that would make it go away.

Cora. He thought of Cora, the way she’d watched Jeff in the back of her club, the way she’d touched him. His stomach turned and his erection began to wilt. 

“Arden?” Belle asked quietly. She moved, pushing herself up from the slouch he’d had her slide down into.

He rose up a little and shifted to get his toes under him, sitting back with momentum enough to rock onto his feet so that he could stand without having to touch anything she might not want him to touch now. Keeping space between them, he tucked one leg beneath him and sat down near her.

Belle scarcely took her eyes off him. When he caught her looking, she gave him a polite smile and glanced away for a moment before returning. Her hands busied themselves straightening her clothes more, pulling her skirt out from under her where it had bunched up.

“I never meant that you had to…” She sighed, at a loss for words. Talking about sex so candidly was never something she’d really done. “You didn’t have to do anything like that. I didn’t ask you to stay for that reason.”

He was shocked into a look of confusion. “Why, then?”

“To get you indoors for a while. To get some food in you and get you warm,” she told him, fussing with a wrinkle they’d caused in her skirt before confessing, “For the company.”

“Are you _sure_ you want me to stay?” he asked.

She couldn’t actually want him there all night. It wasn’t as though he made good company, and he knew that he wasn’t pleasant to have around. Not outside of his obvious uses. “I can do what you want and leave. I’m all right with that.”

“No!” she replied too quickly, and he looked up at her. “No. I want you to stay. If you’re all right with it, yourself. I don’t really want to be alone tonight,” she murmured in admission.

Silence stretched across a few moments before she opened her hand, resting it palm up on the cushion next to his leg. Arden hoped that he’d correctly interpreted the gesture when he reached over and took it. When she shifted closer, leaning against him, he supposed he had.

Cuddling, then. Apparently Belle was an afterglow cuddler. He’d gotten worse post-sex reactions.


	6. Chase the Blues Away

He couldn’t name the last time he’d felt as calm as he did on this stranger’s hotel room sofa. What began with Belle leaning into him turned into her head resting on his shoulder and his arm around her. He found himself glad for more reasons than just the rent money that she’d asked him to stay the night.

They watched the rest of the movie without turning the sound back on. Arden was certain that he felt her laugh a few times, though there was no sound behind that, either. He didn’t ask whether she wanted more; it was pretty clear that she was done with him. Getting to sit there with her without further expectations was far more than he’d thought the night held for him, though. The atmosphere that the dim room and the television created along with her weight against him was the best feeling he’d enjoyed in years. 

Part of her hair lay across his chest, the way she leaned on him. He had to consciously keep his restless fingers from playing with it. But if his hand strayed to it occasionally, the backs of his fingers grazing along one broad curl that fell over his waistcoat buttons, he supposed it couldn’t hurt much.

She finished her glass of wine and had one more before sitting up again. The disappointment that sank in his stomach when she moved away from him was oddly unsettling.

Belle gave her arm a shake until she found the face of her pearl bracelet watch on the inside of her wrist. She sighed at the time. It was later than she’d expected.

“I have an early morning,” she muttered, dropping her hand into her lap. “An appointment and a meeting that’ll draw out past lunch, if it goes the way I expect.”

“And that means bedtime,” Arden said, understanding.

She stood, her hand on his knee as she pushed to her feet. “I’m going to shower first,” she said, grabbing her pantyhose and panties from the floor before she stepped around him.

“Do you-” he began as she walked away. Thinking she hadn’t heard, he was ready to wait or let it go, but she turned back to him. “Do you have an extra blanket?

She looked at him for a moment as if she couldn’t imagine what he wanted with one. “Sleep in the bed,” she told him. “You don’t have to sleep out here.”

“You’re sure?” he asked. “It won’t bother you?”

“I invited you to stay all night. I don’t want you to camp on the sofa.” She reached out, touching his shoulder before she went on into the bedroom.

Belle set her pantyhose on top of the dresser, leaving her jewelry beside them, and hung up her dress to air before sending it down for dry cleaning in the morning. She tossed her panties on the bathroom floor and locked the door behind her. She usually left it open wide, not at all fond of the smothering humidity that gathered, but it seemed a good idea to close it tonight.

Arden waited until he heard her shut the bathroom door before he left the sofa, not wanting her to feel followed. He stopped by the guest bathroom she’d directed him to earlier in the evening to wash up before going back through to the bedroom. Taking his shoes with him when he went, he set them down in front of the long, upholstered lounge seat at the end of the bed and pushed them underneath with his toes. He stripped down and folded his things, stacking them at one end of the seat in an attempt to be as unintrusive as possible. 

The bedroom was as impressive as everything else in the suite. There was another door that opened out onto the same balcony he’d fled in the main room. A writing desk sat next to the bathroom door, and there was a fireplace across from the bed and lounge with a glass coffee table between them. A smaller chest of drawers sat beside the door in from the living area, and a nice stereo rested on top of it. None of it was crammed in or bolted down - it had the feeling of a real bedroom.

He pulled off his wig, looking for a place to put it. The furniture all had handles, no knobs. He didn’t want to leave it flopped somewhere. The thing looked like a dead animal if he just tossed it down on a surface. He settled with placing it on top of the tall, thin statue of a man pointing a bow and arrow toward the ceiling, and he hoped that Belle didn’t find it creepy when she came back out.

Arden wasn’t usually tired at this time of night. He was on the street with Jeff, hoping that a car would pull over and ask one of them in. But he was full of food, and warm, and he felt as if he might be jinxing it by thinking so, but he felt _safe._ He wasn’t worried that someone was going to force more out of him than they’d paid for, he didn’t feel as if he had to stay aware to keep from chancing a knife in the gut. If Belle was just going to bed, he had hours to sleep without anything more than taking up one side of the bed being expected from him.

He pulled the covers out of their tight tuck at one side of the mattress. Belle’s things seemed to have taken up a station on the opposite nightstand, so he thought the right side was all right to take. Arden crawled into the bed in his underwear.

If she hadn’t been so unaccustomed to driving or using a GPS, if she hadn’t taken the turns she had to end up on the Boulevard, if she hadn’t stopped just on his and Jeff’s part of the street, he wouldn’t be here. If Jeff hadn’t pushed him to walk up to the car instead of going ahead and taking it like his roommate usually would, he wouldn’t be here. It was just too strange, the way his night had veered onto a good path. Particularly after it had begun so terribly.

Arden burrowed beneath the fluffy duvet and into the sheets, turning onto his stomach. Everything about the bed was so _soft._ And it smelled amazing. He had a moment of hoping that he was clean enough, but then, she’d probably have the bed changed after he left, anyway. He was still rubbing his feet against the softness of the sheets, trying to create a memory of the way it felt to be surrounded by it, when he dropped off to sleep.

Caught up in wondering at what had happened to her evening, Belle stepped into the shower. She wet her hair and began shampooing the product out of it. What had made her do _anything_ she’d done after leaving Zelena’s dinner party?

She’d always been too impulsive. It was something she had worked at to get in check. When it came to lapsing, though, hadn’t today been a lulu. Taking the car so insistently, stopping in such a questionable area of the city, picking up a prostitute, for God’s sake. Now that she felt more rational, she knew it was likely because she was mourning the loss of her relationship with Gaston. That was the only thing that made sense, as far as triggering her actions. And people did strange things when they ended long term relationships. The secretary she’d had prior to Leroy had worked with her for five years, and when the woman’s girlfriend broke up with her, she’d moved to Tuscany with barely forty-eight hours’ notice. 

She leaned under the hot shower spray, rinsing her hair and letting the water run down her back before she smoothed a little conditioner through. She thought of the way Arden had looked at her, though, while he touched her. His voice, his smile, the way his fingers worked… She’d never had an orgasm quite like the one he’d teased from her body. 

Belle felt the warmth of arousal in her belly, catching her by surprise. She craved more of it.

Oh, she _had_ to get a handle on herself. She washed quickly and rinsed the soap from her, then turned the hot water off, turning the cold full blast at the same time. It killed her libido with a torrent of icy water. At least for the time being. The cold shocked the breath from her, but it did the job. It drove the wine’s buzz from her head, as well.

As she shut the water off entirely, she had an errant thought about her purse still being on her desk, right out in the open. She hurried to dry herself, giving her hair a good squeeze and ruffle with a towel before slipping into her nightgown and robe. She didn’t want to think it of Arden, but she decided that it would be rather stupid of her to not check.

When she stepped back into the bedroom, she found his clothes laying very neatly folded on one end of the chaise at the foot of the bed. There was such a pile of it there. It didn’t look like so much when it was on him. His shoes had been moved beneath it, and that terrible wig now hung over the art nouveau archer statuette on top of the dresser. Right next to her untouched jewelry. She went quietly over to the bedside.

Arden had buried himself face down beneath the covers, pulling them all the way up to the back of his neck. He was sound asleep. She started to walk away, but the desire to have a look at him while he couldn’t pull one of those masks back up won out.

His hair was a soft, dark sandy brown, and while she far preferred it to the wig, she could imagine any number of reasons he might wear it. Belle wondered if the strands of silver that she could see in the light of the bedside lamp bothered him. But how was he old enough to have a start on gray hair? 

Arden looked young, particularly with the deception swept away from his features. He couldn’t have been out of his twenties. She’d found a few grays of her own, though, and she was in her mid-thirties. So she supposed it was possible. He was certain to have a hard enough life for it.

Belle resisted reaching out to touch him, to climb into the bed and warm herself against him. She didn’t want to wake him, and it was probably inappropriate. She could only think how badly he needed some peaceful sleep.

Wrapping her robe more closely around her, she went back out into the living room and turned the fireplace on to chase away the chill of her cold shower. She walked across to the desk to check her clutch where she’d left it. 

It was just fine. Her cash and cards were right where she left them. Nothing at all had been disturbed. Belle glanced over her shoulder toward the bedroom, feeling a bit guilty for distrusting him.

She sat down and brushed the pile of condoms he’d left there into the desk drawer, shaking her head. Her cold shower had shaken the sleepiness from her along with everything else. She shuffled through the mail again before setting it aside, then pulled a couple of files from the slim attaché case next to her feet. If she couldn’t sleep, then it wouldn’t hurt to refresh herself on Granny Lucas' Gourmet Foods, LLC and just how far underwater it was.


	7. Is It Any Wonder

The chiming little doorbell rang through the suite. Belle got up to answer it. “Well, yes, obviously she’ll fight it. Mrs. Lucas has been fighting buyouts for decades,” she said as she signed for the room service she’d ordered, beckoning the waiter on in. “And I can’t blame her. If I’d build up something from scratch the way she has, I would fight tooth and nail for it, too.”

“She wants to meet with you.” Zelena sounded unimpressed and bored, and as though she was distracted by something else. “An actual meeting. I believe her exact words were, ‘none of that Skype BS.’ I don’t know if it’s wise.”

Belle hummed her disapproval. No, Zelena would have rathered take the company out from under Mrs. Lucas without ever having to see her face. But that wasn’t the way Belle did things. 

“Make arrangements, then. Dinner tonight at Mastro’s. They’ll make space for me.” She opened her appointment book and struck through the early appointment for a video conference, making a note about dinner.

There was a moment of silence on the line before her lawyer spoke again. “Belle, honey,” she said, the note of condescension in her voice that always grated Belle’s nerves. “I don’t think you want to do that. You don’t want to go into a meeting with her alone. Beverly Lucas, she’s a feisty old thing, and she has a great lawyer of her own. If you say the wrong thing, she could sue us for millions.” 

“Well, there’s always the chance that things could go right,” Belle replied sweetly, and she hoped that her own tone gave Zelena a bloody cavity. She usually took the other woman’s mercenary pessimism in stride, but she wasn’t in the mood for it this morning. “By the by, your car…”

“My car? What about my car?” Zelena asked. When she didn’t receive an immediate response, she snapped off, _“Belle?_

“Oh, my goodness,” she said innocently, recalling Arden’s remark. “Those tires grip the road like _claws.”_

“What? What did you do? You didn’t hurt Margie, did you? Belle? Belle!”

She hung up with her lawyer still indignantly squealing her name from the other end of the line, feeling pretty good about it.

Arden woke to the sound of plates and silverware being moved around. He groaned, rubbing his face against the pillow. He’d destroyed his sleeping schedule by sleeping all night long, but it was the best sleep he thought he might have ever had. Turning his head, he found that the other side of the bed hadn’t been slept in.

Had Belle not even wanted to sleep beside him? Not that he could blame her. He shouldn’t have taken the bed. He should have insisted on the sofa. And he should have kept his blasted clothes on. Maybe that was what had driven her away.

When he sat up, he found a hotel issue bathrobe laying across the foot of the bed, and he was sure it hadn’t been there the night before. Wrapping it around himself, he found it just as ridiculously soft as everything else. He went to peek out into the suite’s main room. _That_ was when the smell of food hit him. 

His stomach growled as if it hadn’t been full just the night before. He crept slowly out to find Belle sitting at the head of the dining table, doing something on her phone.

“Good morning?” Arden said quietly as he walked over.

She looked up at him, giving him a bright smile as she chirped, “Hey! Good morning!”

She was a morning person. Because of course she was.

He reached up, remembering his hair and the condition is was likely in, and he wished he’d stopped by the bathroom before surfacing.

“I saw,” Belle said, setting her phone down. “I like this much better.”

She decided that his hair looked even nicer in daylight, and she was glad she’d thrown all the curtains open before breakfast arrived. He had that lost look about him again. It made her hesitant to simply pay him and send him back out onto the street.

Arden found warmth creeping into his cheeks, and how the hell did she _do_ that? He smiled back at her, unable to help it.

“I can see you’re busy.” He gestured to the paperwork that had taken over a corner of the table. Her cell phone vibrated again. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. Soon as I get dressed.”

“You don’t have to,” she said as he started to turn away. “Aren’t you hungry? You can’t think I ordered all this for myself.”

Arden stepped closer, taking a look at the table. It was _full_ of food. There were pancakes and waffles, an omelet the size of the plate it sat on, a platter full of bacon and sausage, French toast, bagels, hash browns - and that was just what he saw at a glance. His stomach growled again, this time at an embarrassing volume.

She waved him over. “I had no idea what you might like or dislike. I might have ended up ordering everything from the breakfast menu…”

“I’d eat just about anything,” he said, in no small amount of disbelief that she’d done this for him.

He poured a big glass of orange juice from a carafe, standing next to the table and downing half of it before he could decide what to eat first.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked when he took a breath.

“Like the dead.” Arden nodded, reaching for a piece of French toast and turning to perch himself on the corner of the table that she wasn’t utilizing as desk space. He looked over when she tilted her phone to check it, daring to point out, “You didn’t come to bed last night.”

“I worked most of the night,” she told him. “Paperwork, international calls, that sort of thing.”

He realized she’d never quite said what business it was that she was in town for, and he couldn’t contain his curiosity long enough for another guessing game. “What do you _do?”_

“You know, there are chairs here for a reason,” she hinted, smiling up at him.

Arden looked a little scolded as he took himself off the table, sitting down in the same chair he’d taken for dinner the night before.

“I’m the CEO and owner of French Knight Enterprises.”

“And that means…?”

“It’s a company that specializes in hostile takeovers of other companies,” she explained.

“Hostile.” He dropped the piece of French toast onto the empty plate in front of him, and he licked his fingers before reaching for the bacon. “That sounds uncomfortable.”

“For some people,” Belle acknowledged. “I inherited the company from my father. I grew up at his knee, learning the business practically before I could walk. He passed away and the business fell to me.”

She leaned to reach for the tongs resting on top of the plate of hash browns, taking some and moving them carefully to her own plate. She’d brought the company further in a decade than her father had in forty years. It was nothing more than a fact in the accounting department, though. She didn’t feel any pride in that, and she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t summon it up.

“Oh. I’m sorry,” Arden said, glancing carefully over and hoping he hadn’t stepped in something.

She shook her head. “Don’t be. He’s been gone for ten years.”

He unclenched a little. “What kind of companies are these you ‘hostilely’ take over?”

“Ones that are in trouble, going bankrupt, that will run themselves into the ground sooner rather than later.” Belle poured herself some tea, not in the mood for anything cold. “I make contact with the owners, there are discussions, and eventually I take the company and pay them for it.”

“Oh, so it’s not like yanking the rug out from under them. They do get paid,” he said as he reached across to cut a big chunk off the end of the omelet. He balanced it on the serving spatula to get it back to him.

“There might be a bit of tugging,” she said thoughtfully. “Occasionally. But yes, they get paid very well.”

“What does the average company go for these days?” Arden asked as though he had the first clue what he was talking about.

She hummed. “It depends on the size and health of the company.”

“But you’re working on buying someone out now?”

“Mmhm. A desserts and frozen foods company.”

“How much is it going for?” He forked a bite of omelet and poked it into his mouth.

“So far, negotiations are at just over two billion.”

Arden nearly sucked a piece of egg down his throat. “Two billion _dollars?”_

“It’s a fair number for the condition they’re in.” She gave him a concerned look over the sound he made. 

“You- huh.” He chuckled awkwardly. “And there I was hoping you really would be able to afford the overnight.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” she assured him.

“So, you’re… pretty brilliant.” He broke from her gaze and looked down at his food, pushing the half a piece of toast to one side. “I got through grade nine.”

That had been an accomplishment for him, the way things were going at the time. He knew he’d been lucky to make it that far.

“I’m competent,” Belle said with a shrug. “I was raised knowing how it all goes.”

Arden was still eating when she excused herself to finish getting ready for work. He had some of almost everything on the table, knowing he’d never see another spread like it again, and he verged on too full when he finally wandered after her into the bedroom.

She was fussing with the back zipper of an expensive, cream colored business dress when he went in. When she made a noise of frustration and looked over her shoulder at him, he took it as permission to help, and he zipped her right up.

Belle went through to the bathroom vanity and he followed, leaning his backside against the edge next to her. She smiled at the way he just _perched._ His robe slipped open a bit and she got a peek of his underwear - a pair of white boxer briefs so thin that they were almost transparent, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. What she saw had a certain part of her own anatomy pulsing in a very pleasant way, and she distracted herself by sorting through her makeup.

“You’re not paying the two billion out of your own pocket, are you?” he asked. “You don’t have-”

“I do have.” She grinned at her reflection. “But no, it doesn’t come out of my own accounts. My company has relationships with banks and wealthy investors. They contribute money and get it back with interest.”

“And all your company does is buy and sell other companies.”

“That’s it,” she said, plucking her eyeliner from the pocket of her leather makeup bag and leaning toward the wide mirror. 

Arden leaned in to watch her, enraptured by the way she drew and winged her liner perfectly. Not even Jeff’s was such a crisp line. Though, that might’ve had to do with the fact that hers came from a boutique counter and not out of a dollar store bin.

“Most companies I buy are broken up into pieces to sell,” Belle explained, since he was obviously curious. “Manufacturing here, assembly there, and so on. That brings in more money than selling it intact.”

“That sounds kind of violent,” he said, then smirked. “So you’re sort of like a high class chop shop.”

She was glad that she didn’t have her liner pen near her face when he said it. She’d have had a streak across her lid or the tip of the applicator in her eye, because he surprised a laugh out of her.

“I suppose,” she agreed. “Something akin.”

Arden noticed she’d done her hair and most of her makeup before he woke. She went through an entire mascara process with a pair of matching tubes, and he watched just as raptly when she put on her lipstick. He stared at the way her lips gave under the pressure from the brush as she painted on the rosy wash of color. She checked her hair, her masses of dark auburn curls caught up in a double bun, one above the other.

She stood, taking a moment to put her things away. “Hand me my jacket?”

Arden pushed away from the vanity to go back and grab the cream pea coat with pearl gray braiding he’d seen on the lounge in the bedroom. She came out and he held it up so that she could get her arms in. He stood still when she lifted a hand to rest it on his shoulder, balancing to step into her shoes.

“Would you mind if I, ah, took a bath here before I clear out?” he asked quietly.

“Not at all,” she said with a smile. “Help yourself.”

Belle’s phone was vibrating when she walked back to the table to retrieve it. She wasn’t at all surprised to see that it was her lawyer. Who else called her these days?

“The dinner at Mastro’s is set up for seven,” Zelena said when she answered, sounding unhappy about it. “Mrs. Lucas is bringing her granddaughter. She’s grooming the silly little girl to take over.”

“Ruby is far from silly,” Belle disagreed. “She’s smart. And quite formidable herself, when she wants to be.”

“Look, it’s two on one, now. I don’t like you going into this alone. Why don’t you call your boyfriend, fly him out?” Zelena suggested. “Put him on a non-stop. It’ll take the intensity out of the meeting for the two of them, make them think it’s a social event before you swing the axe.”

Belle scowled at the phone. She hadn’t told Zelena about the breakup and she had no intention of doing so. She didn’t have the time or stomach for the remarks her lawyer would make about the entire mess.

“Gaston has his own job to tend to,” she said, deciding that it was a serviceable excuse. “I’m not calling him just to sit through a business dinner.”

Arden couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a bath. The grimy shower in his and Jeff’s apartment was it for the two of them. He struggled to keep it clean. The thing was a horror when he moved in, and some of that shite just didn’t come off, no matter how much cathartic scrubbing he’d done. There was the very occasional shower in the odd customer’s motel room - but a _bath?_ Years.

He sat down on the ledge around the big bathtub, reaching for the plastic box that sat among a number of bottles behind the faucet. It wasn’t provided by the hotel, and he hesitated. Poking through the rest, he found that nearly all of it was Belle’s. Popping the lid off the box, he found it full of speckled and streaked balls, each a different color. A combination of flowery and fruity and spicy scents came up from it. 

_God._ It smelled so nice, it sent shivers right down into his stomach.

He called over his shoulder, “Is it all right if I use some of your bath… stuff?”

“Yeah,” she called back a bit distractedly. “Yeah, any of it. Knock yourself out.”

Arden chose a peachy-orange ball that smelled the way it looked, setting it aside before he started the water running. He dropped his robe and pushed his underwear down, shaking them off one foot. The tub was half full when he got in. Taking the ball, he dropped it between his knees and gasped when color and fizz poured into the surrounding water.

Belle heard muffled singing from the vicinity of the bathroom, and despite her annoyance with the situation and Zelena, she smiled.

“Who were you talking to?” Zelena asked when she came back from putting Belle on hold. She made a suggestive sound. “Do you already have your boyfriend there? Ooh, did you pick somebody up in the hotel bar?”

Arden’s singing changed and Belle covered her mouth to smother a giggle. He was lovely. She felt silly for being so captivated with him, but his energy was _wonderful._ She’d smiled more in the last twelve hours than in the last month.

“No,” she said when she had hold of herself. “He’s not here, and I most certainly did not pick someone up in a bar.”

“If you don’t want to fly Gaston down, why don’t you let me call someone to escort you? I know plenty of nice guys, Belle,” Zelena continued, trying and failing to tempt her.

“You know lots of attractive men. ‘Nice’ has nothing at all to do with them.” Belle sighed, walking through to the master bathroom again. She pushed the door open just a crack and snuck a look in. The sound of his singing and the splashing of water brought her smile back.

“I’ll find someone to bring, Zelena. Don’t go asking anyone. You just keep your attention on Mrs. Lucas and whatever she’s plotting. I’ll be into the office in a while,” she said, not giving her lawyer a chance to get started again before she hung up.

She found Arden up to his chin in opaque, golden orange water when she went in. The air in the bathroom was so heavily laden with citrus and peach that her head almost spun. He had in earbuds, and one of the iPods provided with the suite was wedged into the space between the lip of the bathtub and the wall behind him. His eyes were closed; he had no idea she was there. 

Belle wiped a splash of water from the tile around the tub and placed a towel there, sitting primly on it and waiting. It took a minute or two, but he opened his eyes.

Arden smiled bashfully, caught. From the look on her face, he figured he sounded just about like the cat trapped in a garbage bin that he imagined he did.

“Hey,” he murmured before sinking down a little farther.

She folded her hands in her lap. “Hello there.”

“I thought I closed the door,” Arden said sheepishly. 

“Well, it _is_ my room,” she said with a grin. 

His shy smile flickered and dropped. Of course it was her hotel room. She could open any door she wanted to. And she did pay for use of him, after all. It still stung, though, in that place that would forever smart about never having anything of his own.

“I have something to ask you,” Belle told him.

The sudden change in him threw her off for a moment. She realized she’d hurt him, but she didn’t know how, and she wasn’t sure how to apologize without knowing.

“I have a further proposition for you, if you’re agreeable,” she went on. “It turns out I’m going to be in town until next Tuesday. Business reasons. I’d like it if you would stay on here with me until then.”

“…Seriously?”

“Quite seriously.”

“That’d be eight days,” he pointed out in disbelief. “You want me hanging around here for over a week?”

“That’s the idea. I would pay you. I’d pay you well. To be company, escort me to functions, anything I need of a companion during that period of time,” she outlined with a sweet smile.

 _“Why?”_ Arden asked. “Look at you. You could get any number of people to do that for you. Pretty sure I heard some of them trying to beat down the door last night.”

“I want you,” she said, and his stomach flipped. “I don’t want romantic entanglements. I want someone who will be here for me, for anything. An employee, of sorts.”

And his stomach dropped. Oh. At least he and Jeff wouldn’t end up in neighboring cardboard boxes. They wouldn’t even want for groceries for a good, long while. As long as he could find a better hiding place for the money.

“Well, it won’t be cheap,” he told her, looking down and waving his hands under the water, making the cloudy color move in waves. “Eight days, twenty-four seven…”

“Quote a price for me,” Belle said.

Oh, God. Should he push it? What if she turned him down out of hand after he called a number? 

He ducked his mouth below the surface of the water for a minute, then wiped his hand over his face as he came up. “Twelve thousand.”

“Twelve thousand?” She laughed. “Eight nights, seven hundred a night. That’s less than _six_ thousand.”

“But you’re asking for twenty-four seven, not just nights,” he reminded her.

“Eight thousand,” she offered.

He raised an eyebrow. “Eleven.”

“Ninety-five hundred.”

“Ten.”

“All right. Ten,” she agreed suddenly.

Arden beamed. _Ten thousand dollars!_ They’d be able to live for months off of that kind of safety net. He laughed out of sheer relief and let himself slide beneath the water.

When he came up, he felt her stroke the curtain of wet hair out of his face. He searched blindly for the clean washcloth he’d set nearby, and she put it in his hand.

“You might want to rinse off in the shower when you’re finished there,” she told him after he’d dried his face and opened his eyes. She held up the hand she’d touched him with. “Those bombs are full of glitter.”

Arden looked at her hand, then looked at his own. They were covered in a fine golden shimmer. He smiled happily.

She stayed while he finished, sitting at the big vanity near the door again and fiddling around with something on her phone. It didn’t bother him. Too many people had seen him naked. At least she wasn’t giving him that certain appraising stare that made his skin crawl.

He dried and put on a clean robe, rubbing his hair sort of dry. She was ready to leave for work by the time he was done.

“I’ll be gone until the evening. I have meetings all day and other business. What I need you to do,” she said, walking back to her desk, “is go and buy yourself some clothes. We’ll be going out for dinner most nights, and there will be other functions requiring nice clothing. I need you to look spit-and-shined.”

Belle changed the contents of her clutch into a quilted cream purse with a golden chain strap, taking out a handful of money before tucking her wallet inside. She held it up to him, and he stared at it before finally taking it. He’d never seen so much money, much less held it in his own hand.

“That’s your seven hundred for last night, plus what you might need for clothes. Don’t spend your seven on them,” she told him.

He nodded along as she talked, separating seven from the rather startling amount and putting it in one robe pocket, then folding the rest and tucking it away in the other. 

“Nothing obnoxious. Nothing leather,” she warned. “And nothing with a print. Stripes are fine, as long as they’re subtle.”

Arden nodded again. He could find something classy. Classy enough to not embarrass her. This was Beverly Hills, for fuck’s sake. If he couldn’t find classy clothing here, he didn’t know where he could.

She stood and he watched her move. The slight sway of her hips, the purposeful, conservative movements of her hands, the concentration on her face as she bent to pull papers from the desk and place them in the slim black case open on top of it. She reached for a book, then ended up sorting two from the stacks on the desk, placing them side by side in the case so they’d fit.

“Can I read something when I get back?” he asked.

“Read anything you like!” Belle smiled over at him. “Only, use a bookmark. Don’t dog-ear.”

He chuckled. “I wouldn’t dare.”

“Don’t answer the telephone unless it’s one of the numbers on the sticky note next to it that shows up,” she said. “I’ve left you a key card on the desk.”

He followed her to the doorway. “I’d have stayed for the six thousand, if you hadn’t budged.”

“You undersell yourself.” She grinned and opened the door, looking back at him. “I would have given you far more than twelve.”


	8. It's Really All the Same

As soon as Belle was out the door, he went back to the bedroom, so thrilled with relief that his hands shook. He grabbed his phone from the nightstand and dialed Jeff, hoping that his roommate actually answered.

It went to voicemail on his first attempt. Arden tossed his phone onto the bed and went to comb through his hair before it dried into a tangled nest. He tried again, stretching out across the bed and vaguely threatening his roommate’s appendages while the phone rang and rang. Just as he feared it was going to voicemail again, he heard Jeff’s half-asleep voice.

“H’lo? What?”

“Where the hell have you been?” Arden demanded perhaps a little louder than necessary. “Do you know how many times I’ve tried to get you?”

 _“Prissy?”_ Jeff gasped back at him in confusion.

“No, you great arse. It’s your roommate. Where _were_ you?”

“Oh, God. You scared the shit out of me.” The sounds of flimsy bedsprings screeching as Jeff moved came across the line. “I… went back into the bar?”

“Jefferson!” Arden dropped his face into the covers, groaning in anger and frustration. He’d been right to worry about Jeff going back to Cora, then.

Jeff had the decency to go silent for a long few seconds before asking, “Where are _you?_ You didn’t exactly come home last night, either.”

“You’ll never believe it.”

“What? Oh, hell, you’re not in jail, are you? Did you get picked up? I can ask Cora for bail-”

“No!” Arden snapped, wishing very hard that he never had to hear that woman’s name again. “No, I’m not in jail. The woman- the lady in the Bugatti? I’m in her penthouse suite.”

“You’re lying,” Jeff accused. “You _are_ in jail.”

“The tub here is bigger than our entire bathroom,” Arden said, looking at the bit of shimmer still left on his arm after a rinse in the shower.

“…Are you serious?” his roommate asked.

“I don’t think I’ve ever smelled this good or been this squeaky clean in my life.”

“You complete bastard.”

“And she’s asked me to stay the whole week while she’s here on business.” Arden laughed at the sheer unbelievableness and luck of it. 

Jeff sounded for a moment as if he were choking on something. “You _complete_ bastard.”

“She’s given me extra to buy clothes, so I won’t look like a sewer rat.”

“Did she say that?” Jeff asked, sounding insulted, himself. “Did she call you that?”

Arden smiled at the quick flare of protectiveness. “No, I said that.”

His roommate was quiet for a minute, and Arden could practically hear him seething over not taking the Bugatti. 

“So, what’s wrong with her?” Jeff finally asked. “Is she creepy? Got scary kinks?”

“Nothing like that. She’s great. She’s really, legitimately nice.” Arden found himself having to hold back so that he wouldn’t go on about her. “She hasn’t even asked for sex yet.”

“Well, there’s something wrong. Has to be.”

“She’s nice. She’s beautiful. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

Jeff made a skeptical sound. “Has she paid you yet?”

“I’ll get it all next Tuesday,” Arden told him.

“And there it is,” he said with a vindicated little hum. “She’s gonna get the time out of you, and then she’ll cheat you out of the money.”

Arden rolled his eyes. “She’s already paid me for last night. She’s good for it. And the extra she gave me - I’m going to put some in an envelope and leave it at the front desk. You _have_ to pay the rent, Jeff.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I will,” Jeff agreed. “I’ll pay the rent.”

“We’re going to be kicked out if you don’t. Promise me.”

“I’ll _pay the rent,_ Arden. I promise.”

Arden didn’t quite believe him. Or trust him. He couldn’t anymore. “I’m at the Four Seasons Los Angeles at Beverly Hills,” he said. “Write it down. I’m going to leave the money in your name, okay?”

The springs squeaked again, and it sounded like Jeff flopped down. “I’ve got it. It showed up on my phone.”

Arden sighed, rolling over onto his back. “Where do you go for men’s clothing? The best stuff. Classy.”

“You mean the kind you can’t get at Target.” Jeff chuckled bitterly. “I don’t know. Rodeo Drive? That’s where all the fancy stuff is, right? Just keep an eye out for any place with suits in the window.”

After asking Jefferson once more that he _please_ stay away from Wonderland and Cora, Arden let him go back to sleep. Jeff agreed, but he knew that it was only to shut him up.

He missed the robe as soon as he started getting dressed. It was tempting to keep it on and just park himself on the sofa with movies and room service, but Belle had asked him to get something nice to wear, and that’s what he meant to do with his day.

Arden looked carefully in the desk for a plain envelope. Finding one in the stationery set provided by the hotel, he put all of his earnings from the previous night in it, then added another two hundred. He hoped that Jeff would have a moment of clarity and just pay the damned rent with it.

He scrawled _Jefferson Madden_ on the front of the envelope and took it downstairs when he went, leaving it at the desk with a young black woman who actually had a kind smile for him. Arden left the hotel on foot, not noticing the woman with a black pixie cut watching him with narrowed eyes from the other side of the lobby. 

When he’d gone, she went to the front desk. “Tiana, do you know that man?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” Tiana replied, tucking the envelope entrusted to her safely away. “I assume he’s here with one of our guests. He asked directions down to Rodeo.”

The dark haired woman frowned after him. “I want you to tell me right away if he comes back.”

Arden’s trip down to the shops that Jeff suggested wasn’t long, but it wasn’t the most comfortable walk he’d ever taken. He felt as if every person he passed gave him a second look. Everything was so clean, though - so much cleaner than where he lived. There was hardly any trash in the streets, no one plastering up posters, no one selling anything in the alleys. It seemed safe and clean, and even the people looked bright and shiny.

He passed jewelry stores, dress shops, lingerie and makeup and accessory boutiques, and finally stumbled across a place with male mannequins in the windows. They displayed suits cut sleek and crisp. He couldn’t see himself in any of them, but it was what Belle wanted him to wear. Tugging his waistcoat straight, he stepped inside.

The shop was small, intimate, and there were only two other customers inside. They stared at him, and the employees did the same. Arden tried to ignore it as he looked around. There were no suits hanging on racks, the only examples around the shop apparently being on yet more mannequins. One of the customers stood on a short dais, being measured and fitted in a chalk-marked mockup by an older gentleman. 

“Excuse me,” a woman said shortly.

When she approached him, he was looking agog up at a mannequin wearing a jacket without lapels and a shirt that had no collar but did have a slick, oblong silver brooch in place of a tie. 

“Can I help you?” she asked, brusque and insistent.

He turned to look at her and felt immediately disapproved of. She wore a navy business suit and a bright blue blouse beneath it, all with a sharp cut somehow matching the way her brown hair was scraped back into a severe bun. Her mouth puckered critically. Still, at least she’d approached him, he supposed.

“I need a suit. Something nice. Something very classy,” he said, looking back up at the suit with the silver brooch again. “I don’t think anything that modern, though…”

He moved on to a more typical suit with less startling tailoring. “Something more like this.”

The woman cleared her throat. “I don’t think this would fit you.”

“But these are bespoke, right? Isn’t that the word?” Arden asked. “You tailor here?”

“We don’t have an opening in the schedule,” said the gentleman who had been working on a customer’s mockup. He joined the woman with a stern, forbidding look. “And _were_ there an opening for a fitting, it’s prohibitively expensive to arrange one. That would be additional to the cost of the garment, as well.”

He glared down at Arden, curling his lip and not at all attempting to hide his disdain.

“I do have money,” Arden said, understanding why they were trying to discourage him. They knew what he was. Or they knew that he wasn’t one of their typical customers, at least. “I can pay for a suit and fitting.”

“This is not the right place for you, boy,” the man said, taking a step closer to him.

The woman chimed in. “You should leave _now._ Before we’re forced to call the authorities.”

Arden looked back and forth between them, wanting to argue, wanting to yell at them about the gall they had to turn down a paying customer simply because they didn’t like the look of him. He lost his nerve, though.

He fled. Not feeling like repeating the experience at another of the shops, he headed back toward the hotel. Now all the more hyper-aware of the looks he got on the street on his way, he wrapped his arms tightly around himself as though he could hide the bright red brocade of his waistcoat that way. Arden had never been more aware of how ridiculous he was. Or how worthless.

All he wanted to do was get back up to Belle’s hotel room and hide until she returned from work. He only hoped she wouldn’t be angry that he’d been unable to do what she told him to. He hadn’t gotten halfway across the lobby when a woman with cropped hair and a sleek black dress hurried to follow him.

“Pardon me,” she said, trotting after him as he tried to get to the elevator. 

He sped up. If he was quick enough, he was sure that he could get inside and be on his way up before she caught him.

“Pardon me, sir! My name is Mary Margaret Blanchard. I’m the hotel manager. May I help you?” she asked insistently.

Arden cringed, her tone reminding him of the way the woman in the clothing shop had spoken to him. He looked over at her, not stopping. “I’m just going up to my room.”

“I trust you have a key card, then?” she asked.

He stopped short, turning automatically toward her. _Damn._ Idiot. He knew exactly where it was, and it wasn’t in his pocket. “No, I- I left it on the desk. But I’m in the penthouse. If you could just-”

Ms. Blanchard challenged him. “You’re a guest here?”

“I’m a guest’s guest…” he said, realizing too late how pathetic it sounded.

She gestured to a young man with sharp features. He wore a blue suit with a small brass badge on the lapel. Hotel security. “And who, exactly, would that be?”

“Belle French,” he said without missing a beat.

As Ms. Blanchard squinted at him, the elevator chimed and the attendant came out.

“She knows me,” Arden said, waving her over. “She saw us when we came in last night.” He looked to the elevator attendant. “Tell her you know me?”

The young woman went over and the manager pivoted on a heel to face her. “You’ve just come off the night shift, haven’t you, Miss Hua? Do you know this man?”

“Sure,” the attendant said. “He’s with Ms. French.”

Arden sighed in relief. “You see? Belle French,” he repeated, and he hurried toward the elevator again.

Ms. Blanchard marched right in after him and clamped a hand around his upper arm, walking him right back out.

“What? No,” he said, near panic. “She said she knows me!”

“Please accompany me to my office. We need to have a chat,” the manager said with a chilly undercurrent to her voice. She looked to the security officer. “Herc, make certain he follows.”

Arden went along with ‘Herc’ directly behind him, feeling hope drain from him as he did. They were going to kick him out. She knew what he was, and that he shouldn’t be there, just as the people from the shop had. The manager would likely call the cops and have him arrested, and there went his customer, rent, and all in one fell swoop. And Belle would think he’d taken her money and run.

“Sorry,” the young security officer muttered with an apologetic look as he ushered Arden in.

She closed the door with not quite a slam and steered him over toward a chair across from her desk.

“Sit,” she said, and he did, feeling like a dog obeying a command. “What is your name?”

 _Anything you want it to be, dearie._ The quip sprang to mind, but he was aware that it wasn’t the best response in this particular situation.

“Why do you want to know?” he asked instead.

She arched an eyebrow. “If you truly are a guest…”

“Arden,” he clipped, his fingers rubbing nervously together.

“All right, ‘Arden,’” she began, and he didn’t like the way she said it as though he were lying. “This is a reputable hotel. One of the finest in the country. You might have been able to tell by the condition of the establishment and the guests therein. We don’t have hourly rates. We don’t have a supply of prophylactics in the washrooms. And our sheets are changed each day. However, Ms. French is one of our most valued friends. Typically, a guest would sign in an extra person joining their room. Since Ms. French _is_ so important to us, we’re willing to overlook it this once.”

He looked up from staring at the desk blotter. She wasn’t going to kick him out?

Ms. Blanchard went on. “I’m assuming that you are Ms. French’s…?” Her sentence drifted expectantly.

“Her…?” he tried to pick it up, but he didn’t understand what she wanted from him.

She sighed. “A relative?”

“Yes!” Arden said, grabbing onto the hint. “Cousin. From overseas.”

“Ah, yes. Cousin.” She gave him a strained smile. “And how long will you be visiting?”

“Only until Tuesday. Next Tuesday, not today.”

“Excellent. So you’ll have no reason to ever patron our hotel again once Ms. French goes home?”

And there was the disgusted condescension. He sank down in the chair a little.

“No. Never,” he murmured.

Ms. Blanchard looked him up and down. “I’m also going to ask you to find something a bit more… conforming to wear while you’re a guest here. I don’t appreciate disruption.”

That was more than he could withstand. “I _tried,”_ he ground out between his teeth. “She- Belle- she gave me enough money to buy something nice. There’s a dinner tonight, and I need something classy to wear. No one would help me. They gave me the same look you’re giving.” Arden flicked his eyes up to her face. “Like I’m trash.”

The hotel manager shook herself as though she hadn’t realized what she’d been doing. Her expression changed. “Go on, then. You won’t be in trouble for going in and out while you’re Ms. French’s guest. Stop by the front desk on your way back in and I’ll have a new key card waiting for you.”

He laughed, but it was a painful sound. “You don’t understand. _No one would help me.”_

She regarded him for a moment before sighing, then moved around to the other side of her desk. Pulling her phone from the desk drawer, she sat down and dialed.

“No, no, don’t call the police,” he gasped, frantic again with the fear that she’d changed her mind. “Please, don’t-”

“Gentleman’s formal attire, please,” she said.

Arden cut off his pleading, gaping at her. “Formal… attire?”

She went on, paying no attention to his confusion. “Yes, connect me with David, please.”

There was a minute during which they only looked at one another - her in resignation, Arden dumbfounded.

“David! Hello there,” she said, and there was a change in her voice. She smiled and looked down. “No. No, David, you know I’m at work. I have someone here in need of your help. He’s the relative of one of our very special guests, and I need someone to take care of him.”


	9. You're One of My Kind

The blue and white French Knight Enterprises logo rotated slowly on the display that took up a large portion of the law office’s conference room wall. Zelena selected a file on the laptop sitting next to her and the logo flicked away, replaced by video of Granny Lucas' Gourmet Foods manufacturing locations.

“There are far better possibilities for the land that the processing factory is on,” she said, stepping away from the laptop and beginning to pace around the conference table. “The land itself is practically untouched, thanks to Beverly Lucas’ standards. We could easily sell it off to a real estate company for ten times what we’ll be paying for it.”

Belle’s brow creased, and she turned in her chair at the head of the table to look at her lawyer. “We haven’t discussed anything about selling the land for development.”

“It’s a suggestion,” Zelena demurred with a smile bordering on uncomfortably wild. 

Belle gave her a look of disapproval. “Why don’t we hold suggestions until the deal is settled?” 

Zelena’s assistant came scuttling in. “I’ve got the information you wanted,” he said, following her around to the far side of the table with papers in hand.

She kept walking until she got back to her laptop. Stopping the video, she turned and snatched the papers from Walsh.

“Beverly just signed a contract with Marionette Foods to begin producing cherry rhubarb pie with their original recipe. How the bloody hell did she manage _that?”_ She turned a glare on her assistant. “I thought your ‘research’ told you that the old woman didn’t have anything in the works!”

“Zelena,” Belle said.

Her lawyer looked to her, snapping, “What?”

“Let’s not kill the messenger, hm?” Belle held her hand out for the papers. “We know Mrs. Lucas is a shrewd businesswoman.”

“The stocks will go through the roof!” Zelena hissed, tossing the papers onto the table before Belle could take them. “We’ll never get the company for the amount we proposed now!”

Outwardly, Belle was perfectly calm. She stood and excused herself, and Zelena followed her to the door. It did irk her a bit, though. Mrs. Lucas had known this was in the works when she asked for tonight’s dinner meeting. Belle couldn’t figure the point of it.

“Aren’t you worried about this?” Zelena prodded. “We have hundreds of hours invested in this buyout, and it could all be wasted!”

“Just… look into it. Marco wouldn’t have let go of that recipe easily. Do some checking on this,” Belle told her. “I’ll be in my office. There are some calls I need to make.”

“What about the meeting? Dinner?”

“I have everything in order.”

“So you did find a date?” Zelena asked, right on her heels.

Belle headed toward her borrowed office, though she wasn’t certain she could get the privacy there that she needed. “Not that I believe it necessary, but yes.”

“Who is this guy?” Zelena reached to grab her arm when she didn’t stop. Her fingers slipped off Belle’s coat sleeve.

Smiling despite her patience being seriously tried, Belle assured her, “No one you know.” 

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Arden walked into the department store, his skin still crawling with insecurity. Ms. Blanchard had arranged for one of the hotel’s drivers to take him and wait until he was ready to go back. He was sure that it was because of Belle and not at all to convenience him, but he was glad of it, anyway.

The store he’d been sent to wasn’t as fancy as the shops on Rodeo, but it was still classier than any other shop he’d been inside. The customers were of the same caliber, and he felt just as out of place. 

He stopped at the counter just inside the formal wear department, leaning to look into the glass case. There were watches with faces ringed in gems, cufflinks, tie pins, button covers, and none of them were labeled with prices. But then, they wouldn’t be. The people who shopped in this sort of place were never too concerned with prices. If they liked it, they bought it. Price must have been little more than an afterthought.

A pleasant voice interrupted his envious musing. “Pardon me?”

Arden startled and straightened up, turning to find that a man in a crisp black suit had walked up to him. The man had bright blue eyes and an even brighter, perfectly aligned smile, and didn’t that just make him self-conscious all over again.

“You must be Arden,” the man said, sticking a hand out. “I’m David Nolan.”

Arden took the offered hand, and David gave him a firm, warm shake. “Ms. Blanchard said you’d be nice to me - that you’d help me?”

“Mary Margaret’s a great woman,” David said, beaming.

Arden only nodded, not commenting. His thought that there was something going on there was all but confirmed. 

When he got no response, David asked, “So, do you know what you need?” 

“A suit,” Arden told him. “Something classy.”

“What manner of plans do you have while you’re visiting?”

“Dinner this evening. She- _Belle_ said we’d be having dinner out most evenings, and there’d be some functions. I just need something to wear tonight, though.” Arden shrugged and shook his head, moving to lean on the glass counter.

David made a cautioning sound and touched Arden’s arm, urging him back. “Careful with the glass.”

“Oh.” Arden looked down at it. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” David said with another smile. “Let’s begin with that dinner, then.”

He headed toward a wall filled with shelves holding a rainbow of folded dress shirts, looking back to make sure that Arden followed.

“Do you have any ideas about what your cousin would like to see?” David asked.

Arden frowned as he caught up to the other man, wishing that Ms. Blanchard hadn’t passed along the lie. “She’s- she’s not my cousin.”

David smirked over at him, reaching out to give him a pat on the back. “Yeah, well, they never are.”

Between deciding on style and color and fit, it took the two of them a while to assemble a suit off the racks. Arden hadn’t imagined that he could feel _more_ out of place, but the suit had accomplished it. David talked at him, kindly trying to make him feel at ease. It wasn’t until he let it slip that he had a daughter getting ready to graduate high school in the spring that Arden felt able to participate in the conversation.

Quietly, Arden took out his wallet and pulled a small photograph from the bill compartment. “That’s my son,” he said, holding it out.

David stepped over to look more closely. “Oh, isn’t he a big one?” he said of the toddler in the photo.

Not wanting to get into it there and then, or to risk upsetting himself, Arden put the little picture away again. “He is,” he said simply.

He returned to the hotel with a garment bag and a pair of shopping bags that held the smaller bits of the outfit, more or less in shock. Belle’s money or not, it made him feel a little sick to have spent so much in one go. Arden was wondering whether he could get away with wearing the one suit for everything over the course of the week when he saw Ms. Blanchard near the sprawling flower arrangement at the center of the lobby. He hovered nearby while she finished with an older couple speaking a language he couldn’t even begin to place.

When the couple left, she turned to him before he could open his mouth. “You obtained a fitting suit, I trust?”

“I did.” He held up the garment bag in both illustration and defense. 

Ms. Blanchard gave him a curt nod. “At last.”

“David was very helpful. He _was_ nice,” Arden said, smiling. It had been pleasant and fairly novel to have someone treat him like a human being.

She looked at the things he’d returned with, then to the clothing he wore. “I had hoped you might come back wearing said suit…”

“Oh.” His smile dropped. “I didn’t want to chance wrinkling it.”

Ms. Blanchard gave him another of her put-upon sighs, clasping her hands and letting them fall at her front.

“I only wanted to say thank you,” he told her.

A slight look of surprise crossed her face. “You’re quite welcome.”

Arden stepped around her, stopping at the front desk to retrieve the promised room key, then made his way to the elevators and up to the penthouse. When he let himself into the suite, the telephone was ringing. He laid his things carefully over the armchair on the way in and hurried over, checking the sticky note to verify that he was allowed to pick up before taking the handset.

“Hello?” he answered.

“There you are!” Belle said. “You’ve been out and back already?”

He sat down in the desk chair, glad to hear her voice. “I just walked back in.”

“Did you find some clothes you like?” she asked.

“I did,” he told her. “I got a suit and all the fixings.”

“Perfect. I’ll be in the lobby at eight. Meet me there?”

“Not going to pick me up at the door? What am I, a cheap date?”

She laughed from the other end of the line. “You’re anything but cheap. And this isn’t a date. It’s business. It’s simply business at a very expensive restaurant.”

“I’ll be in the lobby at eight sharp, Ms. French,” Arden said with a teasing lilt to his voice.

As soon as he pressed the button to hang up, he realized that he knew exactly nothing regarding how to behave in a fancy restaurant. He’d _been_ a bit excited. Now he was afraid he’d be an embarrassment. Not humiliating Belle was worth bothering Ms. Blanchard again.

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

“Keep it running. I won’t be a minute,” she told Graham before she got out.

Belle had asked him that they exchange their usual black sedan for a sleek limousine for the night, for some reason finding the urge to give Arden a bit of a spectacle irresistible. She went inside, looking around for him as she neared the lobby seating. He was nowhere to be seen.

She frowned, walking farther in. Was he still getting ready? She hoped that he hadn’t gotten nervous and left. Her phone was still in her purse, which was in the limo. She turned to go back to the front desk.

“Ms. French, hello,” greeted a woman headed toward her from the direction she intended to go. “I’m Mary Margaret Blanchard, the hotel manager.”

“I know who you are, ma’am,” Belle responded politely. “I’m sorry, but I’m on a schedule and need to call up-”

The manager cleared her throat. “I met your cousin this morning, Ms. French.”

“My cousin?” Belle asked, stopping mid-step.

“The… ‘gentleman’ who is currently your guest in the penthouse,” Ms. Blanchard said with a piqued twist to her mouth.

Belle felt something that she couldn’t quite place - somewhere between resentment toward the hotel manager’s attitude and concern for Arden that he’d run into the woman. She wondered whose idea the ‘cousin’ schtick had been.

“Ah. Yes,” she responded shortly, doing her best not to give away her annoyance.

“I understand he’ll be staying with you until this coming Tuesday?” Ms. Blanchard asked, though she obviously knew.

Belle gave her an expectant look. “That’s correct.”

The manager nodded. She kept pace as Belle continued toward the front desk, speaking quickly. “We greatly value the business you do here with us, Ms. French. You’ve been a friend of the Four Seasons family for many years now. We do, however, discourage bringing in individuals such as your… cousin.”

“Are you insinuating something about him?” Belle asked, wheeling on the other woman as they reached the desk. The look of conflict on Ms. Blanchard’s face was enough to wipe away her irritation.

“Not at all. I was simply confirming,” the manager said with some difficulty. “I believe he awaits your arrival near the back of the lobby lounge. Where the traffic is slower.”

Belle wondered whether Arden had sought out the place to wait for himself, or if Ms. Blanchard had put him there. “Thank you, ma’am,” she dismissed as she headed toward the sitting area again.

“Blanchard. Mary Margaret…” the hotel manager said after her, deflating a little.

She looked more closely at the people there, at last finding him. He sat on one end of a loveseat, leaning with his arms propped on his knees as he read something. Moving closer, she could see that it was one of her own books. He looked up at her as she approached.

Belle found herself a bit stunned. Arden cleaned up very well, indeed. He looked all the lovelier in a three piece suit and tie, the copper shirt underneath flattering him. 

“You’re late picking up your date,” Arden said, smiling in response to the way she smiled. He replaced the bookmark in the slim novel he’d picked up from her desk and stood.

“It isn’t a date,” she said, taking his arm as he bent it for her. “But you look very handsome.”

He felt his smile change with her compliment, his expression turning a little bashful. He couldn’t remember ever before having been called ‘handsome.’

They were on their way out when he remembered the book he held. He shouldn’t have brought it downstairs at all, he supposed. “I need to take this back up,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to the elevators.

“It’s fine,” Belle told him. “Leave it in the car. It won’t hurt.”

Arden wasn’t sure what he expected when she referred to the car, but it wasn’t the limousine she led them to directly in front of the hotel. He was more than a little gobsmacked when a tall, slightly scruffy man in a chauffeur’s uniform opened the door. Belle ushered him in ahead of her. It was no less impressive on the inside, but he didn’t have a great deal of time to poke around. The drive was short and, according to Belle, they were late.

As soon as Belle gave the host her name, they were escorted to the table where Mrs. Lucas and her granddaughter were already seated and waiting, whispering between themselves. The restaurant was crowded and noisy, he needed to visit the bathroom, and none of it helped Arden’s nervousness at all. 

“Stop fidgeting,” Belle whispered to him before separating her arm from his.

Arden forced away the unconscious habit of rubbing his finger and thumb together, stepping near the table without yet sitting, just as Belle did. As long as he could take his cues from her, he thought he could get through the dinner just fine.

The older woman who stood to take Belle’s offered hand looked entirely unsuspecting. She had neatly upswept, steel gray hair and wore an ivory cardigan over a peachy pink blouse that he guessed was more expensive than it looked. A pair of oval eyeglasses on a thin gold chain and a string of pearls hung together around her neck. Everything about her telegraphed that she was a grandmother, and as if she wouldn’t harm a fly. The younger woman, on the other hand - she dressed a bit like Belle, though sleek and dark. She _looked_ like a razor. Like a wolf.

“Mrs. Beverly Lucas,” the older woman introduced herself, first shaking Belle’s hand and then his own. “This is my granddaughter, Miss Ruby Lucas.”

“How wonderful to finally meet you both face to face,” Belle said as she reached across to shake Ruby’s hand. “Belle French, and this is my friend, Arden Gold.”

Handshakes were expected, he figured, but he was pleasantly surprised when both women gave him warm smiles along with them.

A waiter pulled out Belle’s chair, which was something that Arden had been prepared to do. It was the only thing he’d really _known_ to do, other than holding a door. He took the seat next to her.

They’d just gotten their menus when the nagging need to go to the bathroom worsened. He leaned to whisper to Belle, “I need the washroom. I don’t know the etiquette for that.”

She grinned over at him. “That’s all right. Just go.”

Arden was up and about to head toward the sign he’d seen on the way in when she asked, “Do you want me to order for you?”

“What? Oh.” He glanced to the other two women at the table, not wanting to delay any of them. “Yeah, please.”

The bathroom was big and fancy, and so sparklingly clean that he worried about getting it dirty by using it. The attendant standing by with various toiletries was absolutely disconcerting. 

He finished as quickly as possible, and when he returned to the table, the others were quiet. The table already had wine, he saw. He, however, had a glass of soda at his setting, and he found himself glad that Belle had remembered. A few awkward and silent minutes later, the waiter began bringing out food. 

“I didn’t think I was gone long enough to miss the salad,” he whispered over to Belle.

“This is the salad,” she said.

Arden looked more closely at his plate. It held a veritable slab of lettuce with something wet and white piled on it, crumbles of something that he was fairly sure was cheese, a pile of tomatoes, and a handful of bacon. He looked to her again.

“It’s a wedge salad,” she told him, and he saw that she had the same.

He sat back in his chair. It wasn’t something he’d have chosen, but he hadn’t been lying to her at breakfast. He would eat pretty near anything. He just wasn’t sure how to go about eating this. Watching Belle begin, he picked up his fork and knife as she did, and he cut a piece off the end of the lettuce. It did taste good, he discovered. There was nothing wrong with it. It was food. He simply didn’t understand the point of giving anyone part of a head of lettuce on a plate without first taking it apart.

She touched his arm. “There are appetizers, as well.”

Arden looked at the platter placed just behind their plates. Slices of what were certainly beef had been laid out overlapping in a long row on top of something green and mashed. He thought it might’ve been avocado. He’d been prepared for rare steak, but this was ridiculous.

“That’s raw…” he said, eyeing it.

“It’s fine,” she told him, taking a piece to illustrate. “It’s steak sashimi.”

Arden couldn’t make himself follow her lead on that one. There was another appetizer on the Lucas side of the table - it looked like overturned mushroom caps stuffed with something, all arranged in a neat circle on a skillet. 

Mrs. Lucas, seeing how he looked over, took the handle of the pan and gave it a small nudge toward him. 

He smiled gratefully and reached for one. Sticking his hand across the table, Arden was glad he’d taken David’s suggestion of having a quick manicure while he was in the department store. It had gotten rid of the remnants of polish - courtesy of Jeff - left around the edges of his nails.

Between courses, Arden pulled his phone from his jacket pocket to check it and found a single message from a repeat customer. He turned the work down with a brief apology, hoping that doing so wouldn’t discourage any future offers. As he put his phone away, he caught Belle giving it a lingering look.

“Sorry,” he murmured, slipping it back into his pocket. The smile she gave him in response felt a little odd.

“You don’t seem to understand, Ms. French,” Ruby said as their plates were taken in preparation for the main course. “We’ve seen your sanitized press kits and your publicity regarding past business endeavors, but we’ve heard the rumors, too. You’ll forgive me if I’m doubtful as to your intentions toward my grandmother’s company.”

Belle folded her hands in her lap on top of her napkin. “I’ve never hidden what French Knight does. I provide a service necessary to the business world as well as to people in need of help when their own companies have outlived being lucrative.”

Waiters brought out the next course, setting their plates in front of them. Arden noticed that Belle had ordered the same for both of them so far; their plates each held a smallish cut of steak with a curved piece of bone attached to one end. To one side of it there were mashed potatoes with bits of something pink in them, and a mixture of mushrooms and Brussels sprouts sat on the other.

Arden looked at the forks to the left of his plate. Belatedly, he realized he’d used the one above his setting on the ‘salad.’ He picked up one of the two left and stared at the other, no longer remembering which he was meant to eat with.

“Sweetie,” Beverly said as her granddaughter and Belle carried on their bristly debate, noticing his distress. She purposefully picked up a fork where he could see. “I always did hate that salad fork, dessert fork nonsense. As long as you have a utensil that gets it to your mouth.”

Arden smiled over at her, taking the hint and the fork nearer his plate. The borderline hostile discussion continued until they’d gotten a good start on their meals.

“Ms. French,” Beverly began after a sip of wine. “If you happened to buy out my company - though I don’t believe you’ll manage it - what are your plans for it?”

“I would isolate it into its separate components and sell each to the respective highest bidder,” Belle said, avoiding a sugar coating. There were people who wanted to be coddled and people who wanted honesty, and the Lucases were the latter.

Ruby’s fork clicked hard on the side of her plate as she set it down. “I don’t appreciate your goal of taking the company my grandmother spent thirty years building, and ripping it apart to sell at auction.”

Belle sighed. “Mrs. Lucas… at the price your company will sell for, you’ll be a very wealthy woman, and so will your granddaughter. There’s a future _there,_ and things that you or your granddaughter can do with that money without holding onto a business that’s rapidly declining no matter the recipes you acquire in an attempt to keep it afloat for a few more years, at most.”

To Arden, the table felt like a battleground. He’d never enjoyed arguing or hearing people argue, and it made his nerves feel on end in an entirely different way.

Ruby scoffed loudly in reply to Belle’s remarks, but her grandmother placed a hand on her arm.

“I’m wealthy enough, thank you ever so much,” Mrs. Lucas said. “I plan to leave the company to Ruby when I’m gone, as you’re aware. And a company bringing in continuous cash flow is far more reliable than a one time sale. I’m sure you understand.”

“I do understand,” Belle assured her. “But Granny Lucas’ Gourmet Foods is sinking so quickly…”

Arden did his best to tune the conversation out. He went for one of the Brussels sprouts, meaning to stab it with his fork. It avoided being forked, so he tried harder, only to find that it was far more firm than expected. _It slipped,_ flying off his plate at a speed he never would have imagined that a cooked vegetable could manage.

The Brussels sprout flew in the direction of the waiter who stood nearby to remain at their specific service, thankfully only hitting the man’s shoe. He dipped down with a napkin to remove it from the floor, holding it behind his back until another server, having seen, passed by to take it from him.

Wishing that it were possible for the floor to swallow him up, Arden turned very red. Mrs. Lucas managed to smother her amusement into a quiet snort, but Ruby did not, dissolving into a giggle. Belle pressed her lips together, doing her best not to grin and failing. The waiter shook his head and smiled, making a small gesture to brush aside the accident.

“Sorry,” Arden mumbled. “Sorry, I’m sorry-”

“It’s quite all right,” Beverly assured him.

Belle reached over, touching his leg. “It’s fine, Arden.”

He didn’t try again until the rest of the table continued its vibrant discussion. Successfully spearing a Brussels sprout, he put the entire thing in his mouth. It was his first time eating one - and the last time, he decided quickly. He took a long drink to get rid of the taste.

When dessert came around, he was beyond relieved that his came in the form of a simple though large piece of chocolate cake. He ate it slowly to savor it.

“Mrs. Lucas, _you_ asked for this face to face meeting,” Belle pointed out. “Is there anything I can legitimately do for you?”

“You can leave Granny Lucas’ Gourmet Foods alone. Leave it as you found it and bow out. Find another company to tear apart,” Beverly told her.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do that,” Belle said, and she sounded truly apologetic for it. “I own too many shares, I have too much interest. I can’t simply allow it to be driven into the ground until its components have no value at all.”

Ruby sputtered. “Driven into the ground!”

Her grandmother patted her hand again. “I’ll buy out your shares. You’ll have no need to-”

Belle shook her head. “You don’t have the money to buy them back. I’ve seen your finances.”

“We’ll find the money!” Ruby snapped, her spoon clattering to her saucer.

“Ruby. Hush,” Beverly said softly. “Apparently Ms. French plays hardball. So can we.”

Ruby threw down her napkin and stood. “I need some air. Arden, it was nice meeting you. If this vulture is your friend… Well, good luck,” she said before stalking out.

Mrs. Lucas gave her granddaughter’s back a disapproving look, but she rose from her chair, as well. “I believe I’ll follow my Ruby,” she said coolly. “Ms. French, Mr. Gold. Enjoy the rest of your dessert.”

She started to walk past, then paused next to Belle’s chair. “Ms. French, I would take care, if I were you. Attempt to tear my company apart and I will make it my aim to ensure the same befalls you.”

Arden watched with wide eyes as the older woman left. “Did the lady who makes frozen lasagna just threaten you? And stick you with the bill?”

“They’re upset. And I can’t blame them for being so,” Belle said with a shrug. “Go ahead, let’s finish our meal.”

He ate the last couple of bites of his cake and set his fork at the edge of the plate the way Ms. Blanchard taught him. For a moment, he was curious at not feeling full. The size of the courses, with an exception for the lettuce, hadn’t been terribly filling, he realized.

“Belle,” he said quietly, leaning toward her a little. “If it’s all the same to you, can we run by a drive-through on the way back to the hotel?”


	10. Lonely Just Like Me

Twenty minutes in, Belle dearly wished she hadn’t called her lawyer with an update on how the dinner meeting went. Fed up and finished with her side of the conversation, she hung up while Zelena was still raging and drifted toward the open balcony.

She found Arden there, apparently having taken one of the dining chairs to sit just outside the door. “I thought you didn’t like heights?”

“I’m working on it,” he said, looking up at her. “Not a good call?”

Belle waved a dismissive hand. “Talking to my lawyer has never been what I’d call a good time.”

“Then why keep her on as your lawyer?” he asked.

“Oh, her father was my father’s lawyer, the firm stayed in the family…” She frowned and shook her head. “Zelena is vicious in what I suppose must be the right way for this kind of business. It doesn’t make for a sparkling personality.”

Arden didn’t understand why she worked so closely with someone she was clearly unsettled by, but he wasn’t privy to everything about her business, and it was none of his, anyway.

“You were too quiet on the way back,” he observed.

She looked down at him again, a small smile ghosting past her lips. “I was thinking.”

“Did dinner upset you?”

Belle didn’t say anything. She stepped away from him, going to lean her backside against the stone banister. Arden stared at it behind her, his heart sinking in empathy with how close she was to the edge.

He let the question hang there for a while before saying more. “I don’t get what the problem is, if the company’s in so much trouble.”

“They’re emotionally attached to it,” Belle told him. “And I understand why. I would step back if there were a way for them to save it. But the way it’s going? There’s no chance, and they just don’t want to let it go.” Her frown returned and she rubbed the toe of her shoe against the balcony tile.

“I think what’s bothering you… You like Mrs. Lucas and her granddaughter,” he pointed out. “They’re good people.”

“And how do you know that?” she asked, looking up at him.

“I can tell.” He shrugged a shoulder, unwilling to talk about the gut feeling and where it came from.

She leaned her hands on the banister on either side of her hips, and Arden whimpered.

“Please come away from there?” he asked quietly.

It took her a moment to realize that he was anxious over where she stood. Belle walked back over to stand next to him, resting a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter that I like them. I can’t allow _my_ emotions to dictate business practices. If I did that, my own company would be bankrupt.”

What she said was similar to what Jeff had taught him. Making himself numb, taking his mind somewhere else while he was with someone. Let emotions into it and it would kill you. Arden didn’t say it aloud. It seemed a vaguely insulting thing to say to her. 

He reached for her hand, pulling gently at her. When she stepped easily nearer, he tugged her down to his lap and wrapped his arms around her. There were warning bells going off in his head in regards to exactly those thoughts about emotional involvement.

“Why don’t we see what the hotel has on-demand?” he suggested, hoping to cheer her up. “We could queue up some good movies and relax?”

Belle put her arm around his shoulders and met his eyes. He was sweet, this boy. She’d never imagined someone in his situation could afford to be so sweet. But she wasn’t in the mood for his proposition.

She moved, taking herself off his lap. He let her go easily. “Not right now,” she told him. “Maybe later. Or tomorrow night. Right now, I- I just need to think.”

Arden followed her as far as the entryway. “You’re leaving?” he asked, surprised to feel a bit disappointed. He shouldn’t even have been asking her. It was invasive and he had no right to her whereabouts.

She turned her phone idly over in her hand. “Just going downstairs. You watch whatever you want, order something from room service if you get hungry again. I’ll be back later.”

Arden hesitated for a moment, staring at the closed door before going back into the main room. He went through to the bedroom, taking off his jacket and waistcoat, and hanging them up the way David had placed them in the garment bag. Pushing his shoes off, he exchanged them for a pair of soft hotel slippers.

Not feeling right about ordering room service without her there, he took a bottle of juice and a package of chocolate covered cherries from the minibar before parking himself on the sofa with the remote. Being similarly reluctant to charge anything from the TV to her room, he flipped through channels in search of something. 

He stopped on an old black and white film, recognizing the actress in the lead. He’d caught it somewhere near the beginning, he thought, as she dropped her handbag and a soldier helped her to pick up her things.

It turned out terribly sad. Between Myra having to resort to prostitution and then walking out into traffic, Arden felt all over the map. He wasn’t certain he had ever been so affected by a movie, but by the time it was over, he found he’d been crying. 

Belle hadn’t returned, and after looking at the time, that worried him. He went to the room phone and called down to the front desk to ask whether she’d been seen. They seemed to notice everything here. And it turned out that the concierge had indeed noticed Belle.

He put his shoes back on and went downstairs. Mulan - the attendant who worked the night shift in the elevator reaching the penthouse - guided him down to the ballroom. An arrangement of tables and chairs was being broken down, the room being cleared in preparation for another event. He was surprised to find Belle at the piano off in one of the far corners, playing. Not playing _well,_ but playing. Arden didn’t know what it was, but it felt sad and angry, and that wasn’t a surprise. Standing where he wouldn’t disrupt, he simply listened. 

Belle didn’t play for much longer. She stopped, her hands hovering over the keys, and he heard a couple of the staff murmur. He stepped farther into the room, into her line of sight, and she smiled when she saw him.

He’d been prepared to simply make sure that she was all right and go back up to the room, but her smile was enough to draw him over. Arden sat down beside her on the bench and began picking out a little song that he couldn’t recall the name of, if he’d ever known. He went hesitantly at first, then more confidently as he remembered more of it. It had probably been fifteen years since he last touched a piano, but his fingers knew.

Belle leaned her shoulder against his, watching his hands as he played. It sounded a bit like a lullaby, but a bit too dark to be one, as well. She listened until the song drifted gradually away. 

“Where did you learn to play?” she asked softly.

Arden touched the keys, stroking his fingertips reverently along them. “My mum taught me. Before she…” He shook his head, looking up at her with a watery smile.

She thought she understood the look on his face. “My mother, too.”

Belle felt him lean against her a little in return, and she made up her mind. Looking over at a staff member who was stacking chairs together, she asked, “Could you leave us, please?”

The effect was almost immediate. The room cleared, and the staff closed the doors behind them.

Arden chuckled. “‘How high?’ they ask.”

“The benefits of being a billionaire,” Belle said, but there was no bragging or joy in it. She shrugged out of her jacket and laid it across the piano lid. “You don’t do drugs. You don’t drink. How do you cope, Arden?”

He blinked. She’d caught him off very much guard. “Pardon?”

“I mean- I’m sorry. That’s so invasive-”

“You’re hard pressed to get too invasive. Look where you found me.”

“All right then.” She sat for a moment, taking the time to pull her thoughts together. “As I understand it, most people who… do what you do…”

“Prostitute themselves,” he supplied.

“Yes. That,” she said awkwardly. “They end up with one substance abuse problem or another as a way of coping with what they do.”

Arden thought about Jeff. He thought about most of the other people who walked the Boulevard with them every night. “A fair assessment.”

“But you haven’t. Not as far as I’ve seen.”

“Suppose I cope in other ways.” He didn’t tell her that he didn’t dull it with anything because he deserved the misery of it. “What people do for it, maybe it boils down to keeping hope or losing hope.”

Belle saw something cross his face as he spoke of hope. It was painful to see, and she couldn’t imagine what it felt like for him, whatever it was. “Which are you?”

He looked down and breathed a soft, mirthless laugh. “Doesn’t matter. Right now, I’m here.”

She turned toward him on the piano bench, curling her hand around his where it rested on his thigh. Reaching out, she ran the other across his stomach, and she felt the muscles there tense beneath his shirt. Her hand moved slowly downward to cup him through the fabric of his trousers. She gave him a gentle squeeze and he gasped.

“What do you want to do?” she asked him.

He traded the question back to her. “What do you want me to do?”

Belle looked at him for a few seconds, working herself up to a decision and only just able to put her voice behind it. “Fuck me.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked with a tilt of his head and a grin.

She nodded. She wanted to feel something that wasn’t frustration, that wasn’t other people’s anger and pain. “That’s what I want right now.”

Arden placed his hand over hers at his crotch, holding it firmly there, shifting their hands just a little to stimulate himself. Belle was kind. She was beautiful. He’d had far, far worse customers. If he didn’t think too hard, it could be nice, being with her.

She slipped open his trouser button and pulled down the zipper, sliding her hand down the top of his boxers. Pushing the elastic down, she exposed him, wrapping her hand around him. Arden wondered where that emotional distance of his had fled to. His heart thumped like a rabbit’s. The muscles of his stomach flinched as she moved her hand up and down the length of him. 

He was almost unbearably hard when she suddenly took her hand off him, and it took every ounce of self control he had to not make a sound. She stood, looking directly down at him as she gathered the snug skirt of her dress up around her hips and slid her panties out from underneath. He hadn’t yet seen her naked, and apparently he wouldn’t be tonight, either.

Arden reached into his pocket for a condom and tore the foil open, rolling it quickly on. He steadied her as she straddled his lap on the narrow bench, smiling when her bottom played a few discordant chords as she bumped the keys. He was glad when she took the initiative to reach down and aim him at her entrance. It meant that he didn’t have to risk trial and error in a position where he couldn’t see.

Belle rested her forearms on his shoulders near his neck and lowered herself onto him with a moan that echoed through the empty room. He set his hands at her waist, holding her there as she moved slowly up and down. She didn’t seem hurried in the least and he wasn’t inclined to rush her.

She let her weight sink all the way down until she sat right on his lap. Arden allowed himself to enjoy the warmth of her, stroking his hands up to her ribcage and back to her waist. With him taken deep into her, she rocked her hips, grinding herself against him. He’d been prepared to use his hand between them to help bring her off, but she seemed to be doing an excellent job of it herself. Belle gasped and sighed and made needy sounds as she moved, and as her rocking grew more desperate, he felt her every breath on his face. She was drawing him toward climax _so closely_ with her, and he was grateful for it. It meant that he wouldn’t fall too far behind.

People took their pleasure out of him. Occasionally it was an easy thing, but most of the time… well. At least it was easy with her. He’d so often wished away the pleasure component of it for himself. The bittersweet achievement of an orgasm was rarely a good feeling anymore. More often than not, he cringed when he finished, just waiting for the shuddering to be over with so that he could think again, finish the transaction, get away from what he’d just done or had done to him.

Arden resisted the urge to wrap his arms around her as she got close. Her knees squeezed against him and her hands slid up into the back of his hair, and she cried out, coming around him. He bit the inside of his mouth as he followed.


	11. Set This Place on Fire

“Morning, sunshine!”

Belle woke him by throwing the bedroom curtains open, sending the room into a flood of sunlight.

He groaned, burying his face in the pillow. She’d slept in the bed with him last night after the ballroom. Or she had for part of the night. Arden had wakened somewhere over in the wee hours to find her gone, and he’d heard the clicking of her laptop keyboard off in the main room before he fell asleep again.

“Come on,” she told him, dropping something to the carpet with a thump and sitting down on the side of the bed at his back. She patted him on the butt through the duvet.

He snorted into his pillow in amusement. “‘Come on’ what?” he asked, opening one eye and looking at her over his shoulder.

“Up and at ’em,” she said with a smile. “I don’t know how you managed to come back with only a single suit yesterday, but you’ll need more for the week.”

Arden groaned again, grabbing the pillow and clamping it over his head.

“I’m going to give you a credit card today,” Belle went on. “It’s safer for you to carry around than cash, anyway. If the shops give you any trouble at all about using it, all you have to do is call me or the hotel to vouch for you. All right?”

He pulled the pillow off and turned over under the covers, looking up at her. She’d been up for a while, looked like. Now she was all ready for work in an elegant, bright turquoise sheath dress and a neatly tailored little bolero. She smiled and waved the card at him, and he reluctantly took it. 

Belle saw something off about his reaction. “Why didn’t you get more yesterday?”

“Wasn’t what I expected,” he said, one corner of his mouth twisting unhappily at the memory.

“What do you mean?” she asked as she reached down to slip her shoes on.

He frowned down at the card, his thumb nail skipping along the raised texture of her name. “They weren’t very accommodating.”

“Not accommodating?” She shook her head and wiggled her foot into her other shoe, sitting up again and giving Arden her full attention. “I don’t understand.”

“I went into a place and asked about a suit. I was nice, I told them I had money, and they told me to leave.” Arden held the card back out to her. “They threatened to call the cops on me. They were arses.”

Her expression darkened. “They threatened to call the police?”

“They took one look at me and they _knew._ The hotel manager had to call in a favor somewhere so I could buy the suit I did get.” If she sent him back out, it would be the same miserable experience all over again, he was certain of it.

Belle narrowed her eyes. She patted his leg and got up. “Come on. Get dressed.”

He’d expected to walk again, but she had her driver take them down the street to the shops. It seemed a lot of effort for such a short distance. He wasn’t going to protest, though, if it kept him from having to go on foot. He had done more than enough pacing up and down sidewalks. 

She told the driver to stop when they reached Rodeo, and he pulled over. “Thank you, Graham,” she said before she opened the door to get out, and he gave her a nod and a smile in the rearview mirror.

It was only when Graham followed them slowly as they made their way down the sidewalk that Arden realized they’d likely taken the car for the display of it. He went between looking at Belle and looking down at his feet, feeling as though all eyes were on him in broad daylight. 

Belle gave the shops around them judging glances as they went, dismissing most out of hand. It occurred to her that she walked a half step in front of Arden rather than with him, and she slowed her pace so that she could take his arm. They walked along a little farther until she found an elegant gentlemen’s boutique that she liked the look of. She stopped them out front of it.

Arden stood still while she adjusted his tie and smoothed her hands down the front of his waistcoat. It still felt a tad too loose, though David assured him that it was a proper fit. He looked into the window display and his fingers rubbed together.

“This isn’t the shop I went to yesterday,” he said as she ran her hands along his jacket lapels.

“No, this is a better one,” Belle assured him with a smile. She curled her hand into his restless one and told him gently, “Stop fidgeting.”

He reached to open the door for her and followed her inside. She walked far enough into the shop that the clicking of her heels on the tile entryway drew the attention of the salespeople.

“Hello,” Belle said brightly to the first person who approached her before they could open their mouth. “I’d like to have a word with whomever is in charge.”

The young man nodded and hurried away, returning on the heels of an older, heavyset man with thinning hair and a carefully trimmed beard. “Leopold De Rege,” he introduced himself with a smile as he looked between the pair of them. “May I help you?”

“My name is Belle French. This gentleman - do you see him?” She turned to Arden and put her hand on his shoulder to encourage him forward, smiling at him. “This is Mr. Arden Gold, and he’s come in this morning to consider making a number of purchases. Do you think you have anything in your shop here as fine as this gentleman is?”

Arden returned her smile, then looked at her a bit agape when he registered what had come out of her mouth. 

The manager, not being a stupid man, held his welcoming expression and turned aside to gesture them in. “I’ve a good many things as fine as you would like them to be, sir, ma’am. Allow me to show you.”

Belle stepped past the manager to walk farther into the shop, and Arden went along, not sure how he felt about playacting that he was this gentleman she claimed him as. He was amused and a little awestruck by the way the man practically rolled out a red carpet for Belle, even if it was the prospect of her money that had done it.

“We’ll need more help,” Belle said, and her tone was sweet, but she also made certain that Mr. De Rege could hear the cloaked expectation of obedience beneath it. “We’re going to be spending a great deal of money today on my friend’s wardrobe. And I want him to be treated _well.”_

“I believe you’ve come to the right place, Ms. French, Mr. Gold,” Leopold said as he waved more of his employees over. He bustled past so that he could guide them through. “Please, come right this way.”

The manager took them to an area in the back of the shop, more intimate in surroundings, furnished with a settee, chairs, and an ottoman the size of a coffee table. There was a pair of full length mirrors off to one side, and Arden positioned himself on the settee so that he didn’t have to see himself in them.

“Make yourselves at home,” the manager invited them. “There are refreshments, champagne - or we can order from any of the area restaurants. I’ll be back in a moment.”

When the man had gone, Arden turned quickly to Belle and looked at her in shock.

“Is this better?” she asked, giving him a grin.

He only just managed not to giggle. “They just lay down for you!”

“I want you to enjoy yourself. No one should have made you feel uncomfortable,” Belle said as she took a seat beside him. “And the best way to make sure that people see to your comfort is showing them that someone is willing to do anything possible to obtain it.”

The manager carried a small stack of portfolios when he returned. He pulled one of the wide, squat armchairs closer to them and handed the folders to Belle before sitting on the edge of it.

“Anything here, we can do,” he declared proudly. “And anything that you can describe.”

Belle handed the folders right to Arden and he began flipping through the one on top. 

“What might you be looking for today in the way of clothing?” Mr. De Rege asked.

“A small, full wardrobe,” Belle said. “A fine suit for evening wear, a couple for daytime wear. Some everyday outfits. Shoes, socks, underthings - all of the accoutrement to go along. Everything. We’re working from scratch.”

The manager lit up further. “Yes. Yes, we can absolutely do that.”

She turned to Arden and asked clearly, where Mr. De Rege could hear, “What would _you_ like to wear?”

Arden felt at a loss for words for a moment. He hadn’t the first idea how to respond. “I… like layers,” he said. “Layers and… coverage?”

“All right, then,” Belle replied with a nod. “You need to choose things that you’ll feel comfortable in. Within reason. The suits are non-negotiable.” She gave him a smile, effectively handing everything over to him.

A small gaggle of salespeople streamed into the sitting area they occupied - two men and three women, all with ready smiles. The last pair of them brought in a rack of expensive suits in all manner of styles, and they began pulling them down to offer as examples.

Belle went over to have a look at a display of men’s jewelry, leaving Arden to be catered to and fawned over. Beckoning the manager over, she told him that they would be requiring a number of such items from the display case, as well. He preened happily.

“You’re doing an excellent job,” she said, looking past him to Arden and the people surrounding him, making sure that he was still enjoying himself. “Keep doing it.”

Belle grinned as Mr. De Rege turned around and went back in to ask how everything was going. She took her phone from her purse. There was a little work she could do remotely, and she leaned against the display as she brought up her messages. She remained where she could keep watch over Arden.

She could tell that he pointed out this and that in the portfolios he’d been given, and a salesperson would occasionally hurry off to fetch something to show him. One of the women sat next to him and began playing with the ends of his hair, and another leaned down to whisper something to Arden that made him flush. Belle frowned and froze in the middle of responding to an e-mail, bewildered to find herself jealous.

Casting around her at the accessories, she spied something that would be useful for Arden and that was quite handy for herself at the moment, as well. Belle fetched a satchel down from the display and took it over to make sure that he liked it.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, reaching out to run his hand over the heavy, weathered brown leather. “You’re sure? It’s not like clothes, it’s- it’s not necessary for the events you’re-”

“No, it’s for your own needs,” she told him, sitting on the arm of the settee. “Something for you to put your things in, so that you don’t have to stuff them into your pockets and waistcoat.”

He smiled, nodding. “Thank you…”

Belle handed it to one of the flirting women. “Add this to the bill, please,” she said, then looked to the other sitting next to him. “We’ll need a couple of pair of nice Oxfords, as well. One brogued and one without. And a pair of black dress shoes.”

Satisfied when their flirtations were interrupted and they were back to work, she sat down in the armchair nearer Arden. Crossing her legs, she made herself comfortable and returned to her interrupted e-mail. Just as she sent it, her phone vibrated. She pulled a face. _Zelena._

 _“Where are you?”_ her lawyer yelled.

She raised an eyebrow in response to the surly greeting. “Excuse me?”

“Beverly Lucas has already raised a quarter of a billion dollars to buy out her company’s public stocks,” Zelena seethed. “Just since last night!”

Belle was a little surprised at the news, but she chuckled quietly. “She’s a force to be reckoned with, that one.”

“Why the hell are you laughing?” Zelena demanded. “We think she’s throwing in with her employees. They could buy out our interest in the company!”

“We both know she doesn’t have enough liquid to do it. She has to have someone - a bank, a wealthy friend, someone - to underwrite it. Start digging. I’ll be in in a while.” Belle hung up without another word from her lawyer, and she looked over to Arden. 

A young man with cufflinks and tie pins arranged on a velvet tray got up, and Belle leaned to pat Arden’s knee. “Having fun?”

He nodded, but he looked a bit wide-eyed and overwhelmed.

“I need to go into the office for a while. Will you be all right here on your own?” she asked.

Arden glanced around and leaned to meet her so that he could speak unheard by the others. “They won’t change when you leave, will they?” he said, suddenly nervous about the idea of being in the shop without her.

“No, they won’t. Not if they know what’s good for them,” she told him seriously. “They’ll treat you like a prince. And if anyone does become upsetting, call directly to my phone and I’ll take care of it.”

Going into her purse, she took a slender, enameled card holder with roses painted on the front, slipping a business card from the golden inside. She tucked it into his waistcoat pocket. 

“My number is on there. All right? And you have my credit card,” she said more loudly, so that the manager and his little sale wolves were aware. 

Arden nodded again. “Okay. I’ll be all right.”

“And you’ll be fine walking back to the hotel if I take the car?”

“I can find my way back,” he said with a smile.

“If it turns out you need a car, call the hotel. We have a late party tonight out in Bel Air,” she reminded him. “But I’ll be back to the hotel early and we’ll eat dinner before we go.”

Belle dropped her phone into her purse and thumbed the strap onto her shoulder as she stood. As she stepped past Arden, she rested her hand in the curve of his neck, one finger just touching him above his collar. He looked up at her with curious eyes, and she found herself a bit thrown by the warmth in them.

“I’ll see you this afternoon,” Belle said, and she hurried back into the front of the shop.

The manager was coming toward her, having gathered a few pullovers from the shelves. “Ms. French, are you leaving already?” he asked with a look of concern.

“I am. Arden, however, is staying,” she assured him. “You know what’s necessary for a gentleman’s wardrobe - the small things, the niceties.”

“Oh, yes. Absolutely,” Mr. De Rege agreed.

“Please make certain that he doesn’t leave without all he needs,” she said with a careful smile. “But do not take advantage of him or myself. Not monetarily, not in any other manner.”

She’d expected some amount of offense, but there was nothing more than genuineness in his face as he said, “No, no, of course not.”

Satisfied that Arden would be taken care of, she left him in the care of Mr. De Rege and his employees.

When they began bringing out everyday things - shirts and trousers and pullovers for him to wear when occasions didn’t necessitate anything more formal - Arden was at a bit of a loss. Even those things looked so expensive that he was a little afraid to touch them, much less try them on.

One of the salesmen consulted him regarding where to order lunch from, and when another mentioned pizza, Arden latched onto the suggestion. It had been ages since he and Jeff had been able to afford more than the dollar pizzas from the deep freeze at the back of the bodega. He felt more than a little guilty about requesting a supreme when they went around asking about toppings, but no one batted an eyelash.

Apparently the shop itself was usually off limits when it came to staff eating, because it was something of an event when the manager locked the front door and allowed them all to have lunch in the sitting area. Arden took extra care, not wanting to get food on himself or anything else. The pizza was even better than he’d expected, and everyone there was _so_ nice to him. He was well aware that they were being nice because they worked on commission, but it still felt good to not worry about any of them being hateful. He only wished that Belle had been able to stay, too. 

When the salespeople were at the height of their fawning, he noticed the fluttery scarf that one of the women wore draped around her neck and tucked into the front of her blouse. There were roses on it, and he’d seen more than one of Belle’s belongings covered in roses. He kept coming back to a thought about how pretty it would look on her.

Once the food had been cleared away, before they could set in on selling to him again, he gestured the woman over and asked, “Where did you get your scarf?”

He hoped that she’d found it nearby. Maybe he could find the same one or something similar. He’d decided that he would pay for it with the cash she’d given him and take it out of his own pay. Belle deserved something back for the kindness she was showing him, and while he couldn’t shower her with anything, a nice scarf was the least he could give her.

“This one?” the young woman said as she slid the scarf from around her neck. She leaned close, draping it around his, and grinned. “Here, honey. It’s yours.”

Arden was too flustered to protest, and she’d disappeared into the front before he could recover. He’d never meant for her to give it to him. She seemed more than happy to, though. Even as long as he’d lived there, Beverly Hills got stranger and stranger. It seemed to be all or nothing.

Before he left, the salespeople put him in a pair of crisp black slacks and a bright purple button-down under a lightweight black pullover. The manager arranged to have everything that needed adjusting done in-house and delivered to the hotel the next morning. Arden carried the things that were ready to go - a couple of garment bags and bags holding the shoes that Belle had requested, along with the other small items. He walked toward the hotel, and though he felt no less conspicuous, he didn’t feel quite as uneasy on the way back.

Arden passed the shop where he’d been snubbed the day before. He stopped, taking a few seconds to decide whether he really had the nerve for what he wanted to do. Unable to resist the temptation to retaliate even the smallest bit, he turned back and went inside.

The same pair of salespeople met him with a smile… until they recognized him. The severe woman with her pinched mouth and blue eyeliner looked positively floored.

“So you remember me,” he said, looking between her and the older man.

Neither of them said a thing for a moment. They traded a look, and the man cleared his throat before asking, “Can we help you today, sir?”

“You _refused_ to help me.” Arden imitated the cool tone that Mrs. Lucas had used at dinner the night before, and he felt the sharp edge to his smile. “For someone who works on commission, that wasn’t the brightest thing. Maybe you could do better with the next person.”

He walked out of the store before either of them could respond, very much hoping that they missed the money they’d lost.

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

“Beverly Lucas has mortgaged everything she owns, right down to the last cupcake tin, to raise the funds,” Zelena said, practically oozing with self-satisfaction as she sat back in her desk chair. “You were right. She’s up to nearly a billion at last check. But she’s not going through just _any_ bank. It’s Avonlea Savings and Loan.”

“My bank,” Belle said, understanding.

Zelena’s smirk grew, and the sight of it made Belle’s skin crawl. She’d always gotten a rather unsettling feeling off her lawyer. Zelena actually had quite the genius for business side of law, though, and she could do the more underhanded things that Belle couldn’t bring herself to do.

“I daresay they treasure the business you provide them with far more than they do Mrs. Beverly Lucas’. All you have to do is call, use that charm of yours to ask them oh-so-sweetly to change their mind about Beverly’s loans.” Zelena sat forward and reached across her desk, taking Belle’s phone from where it sat, and slid it harder across to her. 

Belle caught it before it tipped off onto the floor. “Yes. That’s all I would have to do,” she said quietly, looking at the phone and setting it purposefully back on the edge of the desk.

Zelena frowned when Belle didn’t make the call to yank the rug out from under Mrs. Lucas right away. “Maybe I’m out of line asking, but what the _fuck_ is the matter with you? All week, you’ve been moody, distracted. It’s like you’ve turned reticent about the entire deal. If you go on like this, Granny Lucas’ Gourmet Foods will slip right through our fingers!”

Reaching out, Belle took a book from her lawyer’s desk. It wasn’t something she’d have read, herself, but that didn’t matter. It was a book. And right now, she wanted the comforting feel of it rather than the contents. The weight, the sensation of the heavy sheaf of bound paper, the smell of the glue and wood pulp and ink, the slickness of the dust jacket. 

“Do you know what I wanted to do when I was a little girl?” she asked, opening the book and letting the breeze of the flipping pages fan her face. 

Zelena downright scowled at her.

“Writing,” Belle went on, not particularly caring about the look she was getting. “I loved to write. My father didn’t think it was a productive pastime.”

“Your father was a wise man,” Zelena snipped waspishly.

She went on as though she hadn’t heard a thing. “But I loved to scribble, to make up these characters and these worlds, these stories. To _create._ And we… we don’t create, Zelena. We destroy.”

“We create!” her lawyer protested. “We create _money._ We create jobs.”

“We’ve destroyed so many more jobs than we could ever create. We destroy every company we get our hands on. We’ve destroyed people.”

“Oh, we’ve never destroyed anyone.” Zelena sneered, her office chair squeaking as she leaned it farther back.

Belle shook her head. “As good as.”

“We’ve been working on this deal for nearly a year now, and I’m presenting you with the final stroke of the sword on a silver platter.” Zelena spoke to her as if she were trying to explain something to a child. “All you have to do is swing it at Beverly Lucas’ wrinkly old neck.”

Belle looked up, having to work to hide her disgust at the way her lawyer put it.

“Call. The. Bank,” Zelena bit off. She reached across for the phone again and threw it into Belle’s lap.


	12. Fall at Your Feet

There would be hors d’oeuvres and drinks at the party, but nothing like a full meal, according to what Belle had told him about the occasion. Arden looked over the room service menu after he got back to the suite and ordered what he thought she would like. He ordered something less complicated for himself.

When the room service waiter left, leaving behind a bouquet of roses that Arden had asked after as well as the food, he put some quiet music on and took his clothes off. He placed himself in a dining chair facing the door, wearing nothing more than the rose scarf draped around his neck as he waited for her to come back from work.

He’d taken the same book from her desk he had started while waiting in the lobby the evening before. Belle hadn’t asked about it, to his great relief. He had only gotten a few pages in. Squinting at the words and going slowly, he picked up where he’d left off.

The food had been on the table for maybe ten minutes when he heard the door click open. Arden smiled to himself and set the book down.

“You already have dinner ordered?” she said when she came in, not looking over as she closed the door and shrugged out of her jacket. “It smells divine.”

He grinned, mostly to himself in anticipation of her finding him. “Thought you might like something relaxing after dealing with your lawyer.”

Belle turned toward the dining table and laughed in surprise. He was half hard, cock perked up against his thigh, and her smile grew broader when she saw what was around his neck.

She walked over to him. “My, what a lovely scarf.”

Arden stood, clasping his hands behind him. His stance went a bit off-kilter as he shifted his weight to one foot, his hip jutting out. “It’s yours. If you’ll have it.”

Belle stepped close enough to see watercolor roses on the silk chiffon, and she reached up, holding both sides of it lightly in her hands. “Beautiful,” she said, but she didn’t look at the scarf as she said it. Her eyes were on him. “It’s _all_  beautiful.”

He brought his hands back around to rest at her hips, drawing her a step closer. “I wanted you to come back to something nice after you did so much for me this morning.”

She held back a sigh when it seemed he didn’t absorb what she’d said. “As much as I’d enjoy hopping into bed right now and taking you with me, I don’t believe we have quite that much time.”

Arden hummed. “What if I do something just for you, then?”

“What kind of ‘something’ are you thinking?” she asked.

She held onto the scarf as he moved, letting it slip through her hands to give him enough slack to lean away. He pulled two packets from under the edge of his plate on the table, and she laughed. It could never be said that he didn’t think ahead. He left one and wiggled the other where she could see. It was one of the mint flavored dental dams he’d offered on the first night she brought him back to the hotel.

Belle held her lower lip between her front teeth for a moment, letting it pull slowly out again. Nodding, she admitted, “That does sound good…”

He guided her the step over to the table so that she had something to brace against and dropped to his knees in front of her, first helping her out of her shoes. She tugged up her dress to make it go a bit quicker, and Arden reached underneath to take her pantyhose and panties down at the same time. Belle smothered a giggle of excitement.

Sitting back on his heels, Arden began by simply touching her, running his hands up the outside of her thighs. He moved one to the inside and slid his fingertips into her. She was already a bit turned on, he found, and he brought that wetness forward to make it easier for her to feel his mouth through the dental dam. He went back and forth between dipping his fingers into her entrance and stroking her clit until she was squirming and plenty wet enough to make it more fun for her.

“Stand a little wider?” he asked softly, and she moved her feet a few inches farther apart.

He tore the foil open and pulled the thin sheet of latex out, shaking it open. Holding the dam in place, he licked a long stripe between her legs and received a squeaking gasp in return. Her reaction had him wondering if anyone had done this for her before, and whether they’d done it right, if they tried. Arden was suddenly intent on showing her how good he could make it feel even through the latex. He licked at her folds and pressed his tongue into her entrance as far as he could, stroking over her clit with the tip of his tongue in a way that he’d gotten good results from before.

It made him happy in an almost disconcerting way, how she petted his hair as he worked. Her breath trembled, and he felt her becoming warmer against his face as she grew more aroused. When her hands tightened in his hair, he concentrated on her clitoris, sucking it between his lips and rubbing against it with the flat of his tongue. She came with a whimper. Her knees went weak, and he was glad she leaned against the table. He licked her through it, until he felt her muscles stop tensing in waves.

“Maybe next time we’ll manage a bed,” Belle said when she’d recovered a bit, laughing breathlessly. 

“I need to clean up,” he murmured before looking up at her. He folded the dental dam and wadded it up in his hand. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right.” She petted his hair again and smiled down at him. “Go on and do what you need to do.”

Arden got to his feet and she slipped the scarf from his neck as he rose. He went to the bathroom off the entryway and tossed the used dam in the trash, closing the door until he could do something about his erection. He turned out to be too hard to think it away quickly. Sitting down on the toilet lid, he grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the counter. He began jerking into them, leaning his face onto his unoccupied hand, trying to get it over with. It didn’t take long. 

He finished and washed up, splashing cold water on his face, and grabbed a robe from the hook on the door. Belle had righted her dress when he got back to the dining table and she sat in her usual chair. He hoped he didn’t look as flustered as he felt.

“Did you really order macaroni and cheese from a hotel with three-star room service?” she asked with a grin as he sat down.

“And tacos,” he added cheerfully. “Three stars, huh? They should be _very_  good, then.”

Belle shook her head and opened her napkin to place it in her lap. A few minutes into the meal, he felt her slide her foot over to touch his. He waited for her to do more - to say something about it, to move it up his leg. But she simply left it there as they talked about what happened for them both after she left him at the boutique.

“What about a bath instead of a shower?” he asked, following when she went into the bedroom.

“A bath?” She glanced over as she began pulling a change of clothes from the closet.

He sat down on the lounge at the foot of the bed. “Do you have time?” 

Belle took off her watch and checked the time before leaving it on top of the dresser. “I think we do.”

“We?” Arden smiled, hoping she’d meant to include him.

She looked over her shoulder at him as she pulled down the zipper at the side of her dress. “You were going to join me, weren’t you?”

There didn’t seem to be anything self-conscious about her when she finished undressing in front of him. Arden had seen more naked bodies than he could count, and he wasn’t sure why there was something different about seeing her undressed, but there _was_.

Belle was somewhere beyond beautiful. She was smaller than she seemed in her business attire, though she had no less presence. He’d seen hints of the command she had about her, and he found a need to see her exercise it in a boardroom. 

She sat between his legs in the big bathtub, venting a little more about what had happened when she went back to the office while Arden’s hands roamed over her, washing her.

“You don’t sound as if you like your job today,” he observed, dragging the soapy washcloth across her collarbones.

“I… like my job,” Belle said, cringing when she heard how unconvincing a claim it was. She sank into the water just a bit more. “I’m good at it.”

He ran a hand down her arm from her shoulder. “Being good at something doesn’t necessarily mean you enjoy it.”

“At this point it’s the only thing I can do.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.”

“You don’t understand,” she said with a small shake of her head, leaning it back against him. “This is what I was taught to do. I told you how my father taught me the business. There was never anything else.”

“Sounds like your father should have let you be yourself instead of raising you to be his replacement.” Arden held his breath after he said it, unable to keep the observation to himself but worried that it might offend her.

She made a soft grumbling sound. “Yeah. He should have.”

He resumed breathing and gave her upper arm a little squeeze. “Where was your mum in all this?” 

“She died when I was ten.” Belle’s feet swished at the bubbles on the far end of the tub. “Depending on the day, my father saw me as a reminder of her, or a burden, or a thing to be shaped into the perfect business partner. Yeah, not the best way to raise a child.”

Arden frowned. Two of the three were familiar to him. “That wasn’t fair to you.”

“I tried for years to be everything he wanted me to be,” she said, her head tilting to one side so that her cheek touched her shoulder. “Until I realized it was never going to happen. No matter what I did, no matter which goal he set and I reached, there was always going to be another, higher one that made the previous one not good enough. It took me a very long time and a fortune in therapy after I got out of the house to be able to admit that I was furious with him for the way he treated me.”

“Say it again, then,” Arden said, wrapping his arms tightly around her.

“I was _furious_  with him. I still am. He’s dead, and I shouldn’t be so angry, but every time I think about it-”

“There’s nothing wrong with staying angry at him. Sounds like he deserves the anger.”

Belle pulled in a deep breath. She lay there and allowed herself to be bathed and pampered. It wasn’t often that she lingered in the bathtub. Baths took too much time that could be spent elsewhere. But sitting there with Arden was incredible. She didn’t want to move.

“If it weren’t a business thing, I’d be tempted to skip the party tonight and stay right here,” she told him.

“Right here?” he asked. “We’d get waterlogged and wrinkled.”

“Perhaps not right here. The bed. The dining table, maybe,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her words.

He tilted his head forward, his voice turning downright sultry. “Did you know that I’m eight inches hard?”

Arden ran a hand up the soft skin of her stomach. He cupped her breasts in his palms, running the pads of his thumbs over her nipples just above the water and smiling as he felt them become erect.

She laughed, then hummed with pleasure. “Is that so?”

“And they’re all yours,” he said, low and growly in her ear.

“Good old-fashioned physical therapy,” she teased.

“Ah, _that’s_  it. That’s the way you could justify my payment on your tax returns? ‘Freelance physical therapist.’” His laughter was warm and soft. “I’ve been told I’m good with my mouth, too.”

“That I can attest to. And those fingers of yours are very clever.” Belle took his hand, lacing her own fingers between his. “I wouldn’t mind you using them…”

With the hand she wasn’t holding, he drew a wandering, looping line back down her belly. His middle two fingers slid easily into her. He bent and turned his wrist so that he could get a good angle, rubbing the edge of his thumb right up against the side of her clit. She shivered in his arms. She began to shift her hips along with the rhythm he set, and he moved with her. It didn’t take long, with the heat of the water and Belle already being a bit keyed up. He held her against his stomach and chest while she shuddered and gasped her way through the aftershocks.

He wondered if her orgasms felt the way an orgasm _should_  still. Deep and broad, bright like sunlight, sweet. Arden almost wished that his were still such a breathtaking thing, rather than something that was a part of his job and connected to all that meant.

When Belle felt that she had some reasonable control over herself again, she bent one of her legs and turned in the tub so that she could look at him properly. She placed her hand on his knee and began to run it up his thigh. She’d felt him growing hard against her back as he touched her.

“Can I do something for you?” she asked, and the thoughtful look disappeared from his face. “That’s two for me today. Let me give some back, hm?”

“No, it’s fine.” Arden moved his hand to rest over hers beneath the water. He wouldn’t stop her if she insisted, but he hoped to discourage her from it gently. “I don’t need anything.”

She took him at his word, to his relief, and leaned against him. He wasn’t sure why or what it was in response to, but his heart did a funny flip. Arden wrapped his arms around her, doing his best to push the feeling away.

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Belle wore her new scarf to the party, and she took a rose blossom from the bouquet on the table, as well. She pinned it into her updo, nestling it into the waves. Arden had done both with thoughts toward something nice for her. It was only right to show him that she appreciated it. 

Taking her counsel, Arden wore the same thing he’d come back in from the shop. It was perfectly acceptable, she told him. The party was business casual - a suit was unnecessary. He was only glad to be comfortable. He buried himself beneath the undershirt, button-down, and pullover, and he didn’t feel _quite_  as exposed when they arrived at someone’s great white Bel Air mansion. 

After Belle introduced him to Ursula Olagarro - the house’s owner and host of the party - she slipped her hand into the bend of his elbow and took them into an expansive living room filled with small clusters of people. 

Having very little to contribute to any of the conversations that he heard, he did a great deal of listening to and watching Belle at the party. Her pretty, purple wrap dress pulled in tight at the waist and conformed to her hips, accentuating the way she moved in her heels. He listened to the ease of her words and watched the way her gestures balanced between expressive and cautious. She was a pleasure to see navigating what he would have assumed to be her element, if he didn’t know how she felt about it all.

Arden ate from every hors d’oeuvres tray that passed within arm’s length. Not every bite was to his taste, but enough were that he began keeping in mind which to grab a second of if they happened to come back around. When Belle accepted someone’s offer of an introduction to a potential and very wealthy investor, she accompanied the woman to a few people who had taken a group of seats for themselves, taking him along with her. She gestured for him to sit at one end of an empty loveseat before taking the spot beside him.

He couldn’t follow most of the discussion. It revolved around money and the privileges that came along with investing, and that was as far as he understood before it got beyond him. Arden’s eyes strayed to her crossed legs - her bare knee, the soft skin of her calf, the line between her toes peeking above the top of her shoe. It took a moment for it to occur to him that she didn’t wear anything at all on her legs.

Arden didn’t notice when Belle’s attention and that of the people she’d been talking to had divided until her hand rested on his leg. Her fingers slid to his inner thigh, pressing there, and his reaction was so immediate that it startled him. He flicked a look to her and found her giving him an absolutely innocent expression in return. It quickly turned into something much more daring.

She leaned closer to him, “Do you have a-”

“Mmhm,” he hummed.

She looked at him, whispering, “You have protection with you?”

“Mm _hmm.”_  Arden smiled and looked slowly over to her, trying to be casual about it.

Belle pressed her lips together, both glad and intensely amused.

He shrugged a shoulder and whispered back to her, “Habit.”

“Are you up for-” She narrowed her eyes. “Mm, choice of words.”

Arden snorted softly, then glanced around to be sure no one had noticed. “I am.”

“Washroom?” she suggested before uncrossing her legs, bracing her hand on his thigh as she got up from the loveseat.

They made a stop by the butler, a reedy man with a vaguely disapproving face, to ask where the washroom was. He gave them rather terse directions.

Arden followed at her side, walking with her through the hallway directly down from the foyer. They found a man in a green blazer standing next to a door halfway down, concentrating on his phone. It was the only bathroom they’d been directed to. Belle stopped and cast around.

“We could find another?” he suggested.

“I’m not going around opening doors…” she said, though she did look tempted.

He cleared his throat softly. “There’s a coat closet back the other way.”

She grinned up at him. A maid had indeed taken her coat when they first arrived, and she remembered the young woman tucking it away. They went in the opposite direction with careful nonchalance, and it was a relief when there was no one within sight of the coat closet. She opened the door and slipped inside, turning the light on, and he went in after her.

“Guess we won’t manage a bed after all,” Arden said as she reached for his trouser button. He took the condom from his pocket before she could manage to get it out of easy reach.

Belle’s nose wrinkled with her laugh. “Maybe tomorrow. Or later.”

With his zipper down, she opened the row of hooks and eyes at her side that held the drape across the front of her dress secure, leaving it hanging from her shoulders. Beneath, she wore a matched set of blue lace lingerie - the nicest he’d seen her wear.

She began pushing his trousers and boxers down his hips and thighs until they slid out of the way under their own weight. He tore the condom open and dropped the wrapper into his clothes so that it wouldn’t be left behind. More than hard enough to put it on, he pinched the tip and rolled it onto himself.

Arden reached down, touching her through her panties. He cupped his hand against her, and he could feel a spot of wetness where she’d soaked through. The way it affected him took him by surprise. Belle wrapped her hand around his wrist, simply holding it without directing as he stroked between her legs from his palm to fingertips a few times.

After a few moments, she stepped back until she leaned against the door. She reached out to grab the front of his pullover, bringing him closer again. He leaned in, kissing the side of her neck, bringing a soft moan from her, and she drew one leg up to curl it around his hip.

“Standing?” he asked, making sure.

He felt her nod before she said, “I’d like to try?”

Arden pressed another kiss to her neck, nipping gently after it. He had a moment of being tickled over how she’d come out of her shell a bit in regards to sex with him since that first night, when she could hardly bring herself to ask to be fingered.

“We can do standing,” he agreed.

Belle slid a hand down to pull her panties aside. She pushed up on her tiptoes with the foot still on the floor, and he wrapped his hand around the outside of her thigh to help her bring it up onto his other hip. Once he pushed into her, she wrapped her legs around him and held fistfuls of his pullover at the shoulders.

He tilted his hips to pull back, and her eyes fell closed when he thrust in again. He really was nice and long. When she opened her eyes again, she noticed that Arden’s were shut, his brows drawn together. The first time with him, she’d been so overwrought with that terrible business dinner that she didn’t take time to pay attention to him. She regretted that. 

Belle loosened a hand to reach up and touch his face. Her fingertips stroked across his cheekbone, and his eyes flew open. He gave her such a curious look that it made her wonder where he’d been. Her hand settled against the curve of his jaw, and she held it there even as his eyes dropped closed again.

Arden listened to her, to what she asked for, the sounds she made, and it told him how to move. He did what she asked, fucking her harder when she moaned for it, keeping his thrusts steady when her muffled sounds reached a particular height he’d become familiar with. He felt when she was close, and then when she came, her hand clenching at his shoulder, her heels pushing against his arse, the squeezing inside.

His eyes clenched more tightly shut when he came. Arden let the shuddering pass through him and waited for it to be over, to _go away._  There was more similarity to pain in it than pleasure - the sharp surprise even when he knew it was going to happen, the shock of sudden sensation, the relief when it faded. 

He helped her to unwrap from him, to lower her feet to the floor, and he made certain that she was steady before he took his hands off her. When her hand slipped away from his face, something in his stomach tightened.

Taking the wrapper from his fallen trousers, he crumpled it up and eased the condom off, carefully tying a knot in it and hiding it in his hand, as well. When they’d both put themselves back together, she peered out from the coat closet before motioning to him that it was safe to leave. Arden took a quick detour to the bathroom and, finding it blessedly unoccupied this time, went in to bury the condom and its wrapper in the small bin next to the sink. He washed his hands and rejoined Belle.

She had a giddy look about her that he was glad to have had a part in causing. The party was no different when they went back. Almost as soon as they’d returned, Ms. Olagarro gestured them over and introduced them to a blonde woman with an angular face and a small smile who wanted to talk with Belle about a certain corporation. Belle held onto his arm and he did his best to appear interested in what went on around them. His thoughts kept straying back to her. 

Ingrid Fisher, who seemed quite passionate about acquiring and then ripping apart her sister’s fashion empire, went on for a while in spite of Belle’s clear discomfort with the idea. Belle listened, holding onto a polite smile. It appeared that Ms. Fisher had been holding a grudge against her sister for a couple of decades and was quite intent on destroying her. She had some difficulty accepting that buying out a healthy and successful company was not what Belle did.

Belle felt the slightest bump of Arden’s arm against her own. She didn’t take much notice the first time, but when he shifted his weight between his feet and bumped her again, she looked over. He seemed a little green around the gills.

“Arden?” she said quietly, curling her hand around his elbow.

He shook his head and gave her a tense smile.

She turned back to Ms. Fisher, popping open her clutch and taking a card from it. “I’m in town on other business, but if you’ll call my personal office in a week or two, we’ll discuss this further,” she offered. 

She had no intention of helping the woman to harm her sister, but neither could she walk away without a pacifying gesture of some sort. After excusing herself, she steered Arden into a calm space at one side of the room.

“I don’t know if it was dinner or something here, but I don’t feel great,” he admitted under the examining look she gave him.

“Do you want to go back to the hotel?” she asked. “You can go ahead in the car and I’ll have someone drive me later.”

“No, no,” he said with another quick shake of his head. “I’m not that sick.”

He wouldn’t go without her. Arden didn’t want to leave her there alone - especially not on a stranger’s mercy for a ride back. He knew what that felt like, and he wouldn’t do it to her. What he’d told her was true; it wasn’t as though he felt _sick._  It was only that everything he’d eaten from dinner onward felt like it was busily swimming in the pit of his stomach.

They only stayed a bit longer. Belle decided she’d gotten all the connecting done that she cared to do for the night, and she wasn’t willing to stay hours more when Arden clearly didn’t feel well. The drive back to the hotel was quiet. She caught him stroking the back of his fingers against her dress at the outside of her thigh, and as much as she wanted to take his hand, she couldn’t bring herself to stop him from the sweet, idle gesture.

There was a wedding reception in progress when they arrived. A few people had spilled out into the lobby from the ballroom where the reception was taking place - the one they’d had sex in the previous night, she realized. She took Arden’s arm, trying to keep her grin to herself.

Arden slowed as they passed the wide open ballroom doors, looking inside. It was a beautiful view. Like looking in on a painting. He could see the bride and groom in the middle of the dance floor, clinging to one another. He couldn’t begrudge their happiness, but the sight caused him to ache from his throat all the way down through his stomach, too. 

Belle watched the expression on Arden’s face shift from a careful neutral to something far different when he came to a stop in the middle of the lobby. When he didn’t know she was watching, when she could see him without getting only one of those careful disguises in reply, she could tell that he lived somewhere not remotely near the smiles and sly looks and wicked little grins he automatically gave her.

“Come here,” she told him softly, turning to face him and urging him to face her in return.

His expression flicked over to confusion. “What?”

Belle stepped close, lifting a hand so that she could rest it on his shoulder. “Can you dance?”

For a moment, he seemed at a loss. “Nothing very fancy,” he finally said.

“Just sway with me, then,” she said with a shrug. “It’s been such a long time since I’ve danced with anyone.”

Arden reached out, curling his arm around her and settling his hand in the small of her back, offering the other to her. When she took it, he brought it close to his chest. They swayed together, somewhat dancing to the muffled strains of music that drifted out of the wedding reception.

_…Feels like the world upon my shoulders. Through the clouds I see love shine…_

“I’m sorry you had to leave the party early,” he apologized.

“Oh, don’t be.” Belle smiled, her fingertips petting the hair at the nape of his neck. “Trust me, I don’t attend because they’re my idea of fun.”

There was such a difference between the mask and _him,_  and she could tell which one she was talking to simply by the look on his face. There was a sweetness and an openness to his features when the pretending fell away.

_…There's been heartache and pain. I don't know if I can face it again…_

Arden didn’t know when or how they’d managed to press so closely, but their faces were all at once so near that their lips were only just not touching. He could feel her breath ghosting over his lips and into his open mouth, and it was _too much._  He wanted to kiss her. Everything in him screamed to kiss her, and the ache inside seemed to double itself. 

He pulled away with a mumble about getting back to the room, taking a step back from Belle and out of her arms before his terrible judgment won out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual aid:  
> [Belle's wrap dress](https://78.media.tumblr.com/aa8b3dedb595a612191e9b3f8aa3b54a/tumblr_p6qog8xOPY1uvepcao1_1280.jpg)


	13. Cut Me to the Bone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (It's TEA awards time again! If you have a tumblr account and you've been enjoying _Life in Detail_ , please consider going over to the [TEA nomination page](http://theespensonawards.tumblr.com/submits) and nominating this story for **Best Movie AU** and **Best Woobie!Rum** to get them on the ballot?)

“Watch where you’re walking! If you step in anything, you’ll be going home on foot, because you’re not getting back into _my_  car with it.” The shrill voice carried across the country club lawn. “Belle! There you are! Here, Walsh. No, set up _here.”_

It seemed that Belle was accustomed to it, but Arden turned to look. A tall, thin man in a bright green polo shirt walked behind a ginger woman who looked as though she’d never had a good word for anyone. He carried a picnic basket and a blanket, and did his best to balance a large stake umbrella under one arm. She carried precisely nothing.

“I’m going down to speak with that Ms. Fisher. Find me when you’re done,” she said, and she left him to discern which spot she’d meant for him to set up on.

The woman’s snapped demands made something in Arden want to shrink away. She hurried off in another direction, and he blew out a breath of relief when she didn’t come near them.

“That would be Zelena and her assistant,” Belle told him. She didn’t sound too thrilled about her lawyer’s presence, either. “I’ll introduce you later.”

“Yeah, I’ll look forward to that,” he said, and she chuckled, bumping gently into him.

Arden had the big quilt loaned to them by the hotel while Belle carried a picnic basket provided by room service, and she kept her free arm linked with his as they made their way across the grass. He’d thought he would be less nervous about these social engagements of hers the more often they attended. That turned out to be a miscalculation. There were hundreds of people attending the match.

“What if someone recognizes me?” he asked. “I’m on the street _every_  night. Thousands of cars go by. Someone here is bound to have passed me at some point.”

“Highly doubtful,” Belle said, trying to allay his nerves. “Even if they have driven past, these people don’t see an inch in front of their noses. It’s more likely they averted their eyes, if they even knew someone was there.”

He huffed anxiously, looking around at the number of people scattered along the edges of the field. 

“You look wonderful, Arden. Like a gentleman. You’ll fit right in, and you’re going to have a great time, I promise. Come on.” She tugged at his arm and took him to the area where people were setting up their picnic spots, where they could see without climbing into the stands or peering between other spectators.

He spread their quilt out on the grass and she placed the basket at one end, sitting down and patting next to her. Arden sat where she asked him to. There was no one too nearby, and he was glad of it. Going out to something so teeming during the day was somehow different from going out at night. He felt exposed, and he needed a little while to adjust to being there before dealing with strangers getting too close.

They weren’t there long before the match started. It was informal, not a part of any sort of tournament - the match had been arranged purely for the fun of participants and entertainment of observers. Arden actually followed it easily. He knew rugby. He could remember watching matches as a kid, before he left for the states. It was a bit exciting to see a match in person, he had to admit to himself.

“Why are we here, exactly?” he asked, pulling his sweater sleeves over his hands. He sat back, propping on them. “Not that I’m not enjoying it, but how is this business?”

“It’s a function. Important people getting together to become acquainted. Like the party, it helps to make connections that can be anywhere from convenient to very lucrative,” she explained. “In this case, it also helps that Ruby Lucas is on the home team.”

He looked to the pitch. “Which is she?”

“There,” Belle said, leaning closer to him. She pointed off to the left. “The dark ponytail with a red headband. And her grandmother is just across on the other side, in the Adirondack.”

Arden watched as Mrs. Lucas clapped and cheered her granddaughter on. Even vaguely knowing someone on one of the teams gave him a side to root for, and his enjoyment of the match increased a little more. He joined the cheering for the home team, and when the first forty minutes were over and they called a ten minute break, Ruby’s team was ahead.

A pair of older women in matching floral palazzo pantsuits and shearling coats approached their quilt. Belle stood, gesturing him to join her.

“Hello!” one of the women greeted, quickly echoed by the other.

“This is Glenna and Brigh Weaver-Wheeler,” Belle introduced with a grin. “Between them, they’ve turned being an ex-wife into an art form. Until they decided to just call it a day together. Glenna, Brigh, this is Arden Gold.”

“Sisters?” Arden asked too quickly, before quite absorbing Belle’s introduction, as he shook their hands. He was pleasantly surprised when their greetings ended in kisses to his cheeks.

“Well, aren’t you just darling?” said the blonde woman, whom he gathered was Glenna.

Brigh, the woman with black hair, clarified for him. “Partners.”

“Wives. To one another,” Glenna added.

“Oh!” Arden floundered for a second in embarrassment of his misunderstanding. “I’m sorry, I-”

“That’s quite all right,” Brigh said.

“An easy mistake. They do say couples who are together for long enough begin to look like one another!” Glenna laughed and her wife joined in.

“How long have you been together?” Arden asked, glad for the chance to recover.

“Well,” Brigh began, and she considered for a moment. “My last husband was fifteen years ago.”

“And mine was… Oh, let’s see. That godawful little man who was trying to make sure we couldn’t marry was in office. But I was single for a few years after,” Glenna said.

Brigh shook her head at her wife’s lack of an answer. “Fourteen years together. Properly married for thirteen of them.”

“Ah-ah.” Glenna shook a finger. “That’ll be our fourteenth anniversary this year.” 

“Look, there’s Abigail right over there,” Brigh said, tilting her head toward Glenna before speaking to them again. “I’m sure we’ll see you again before the day is over.”

“It was nice meeting you,” Arden told them sincerely, and he looked back to Belle with a grin when they’d gone. “They’re interesting.”

“They are definitely two of a kind,” Belle agreed, starting off with a smile, then pulled a bit of a face as she looked over his shoulder. “Remember how I said I’d introduce you to my lawyer?”

“Ah! Belle! I thought you would never find a spot,” Zelena said as though she weren’t the one schmoozing with her back to the game the full time. She looked back to snap, “Walsh, for God’s sake! Set it up right here!”

“Zelena,” Belle began patiently. “I want to introduce you to my good friend, Arden Gold.”

He extended his hand and the ginger woman took took it, turning it so that hers was on top, and she gave his arm a pull.

“Zelena Oran,” she said. “Belle’s lawyer and business partner. This is Walsh Baum, my assistant.”

Her handshake send a chill down Arden’s spine, but his practised smile remained cemented in place.

“Aren’t you a _handsome_  one?” she said, smirking down at him. “Our Belle usually goes for those broad, statuesque boys, but you are… Well, let’s say ‘different.’”

It was a relief when she at last let go and Walsh reached to shake his hand. The man appeared fairly harassed.

“So,” Zelena said to Belle, leaning in conspiratorially. “Did you notice? Senator Mal Dake is in attendance.”

“Yes, I noticed. I extended an invitation to the senator personally,” Belle told her.

“I believe I’m going to go and have a word with her before this ridiculous sporting _thing_  recommences,” Zelena said before zipping away from them again.

Walsh was left standing awkwardly - if appearing a bit less tense - with them before he began setting up the picnic blanket and umbrella he’d already moved twice.

Arden asked Belle quietly, “All these people… you know them all? They’re your friends?”

She hummed short note. “They’re business acquaintances, yes.”

“That isn’t the same as friends,” he pointed out.

Belle slipped her hand around his arm and stepped over next to him as she confided, “It’s the closest I have.”

Arden lifted his hand to place it over hers, and the smile that he gave her was a genuine one. “It may not be much, but you have one now.”

Giving him a surprised look, she returned his smile. She squeezed his arm and leaned her head against his shoulder for a moment before reluctantly letting go of him. “I should go and rescue Senator Drake. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

She could see the senator animatedly and vehemently disagreeing with something that Zelena said, and she hurried. There was no telling what had come out of her lawyer’s mouth. It likely involved damage control on her own part, though. She found Zelena casting narrowed eyes in the direction of Arden and Walsh as she approached, and she placed a hand on Zelena’s back to divert her attention. It might not have been the best choice from professional perspective, but Walsh deserved a chance for a few breaths unharangued. 

Arden stood with the lawyer’s assistant in an ever increasingly uncomfortable silence. Walsh had nothing much to say, and he’d never been sure how to start everyday conversations with other men. Particularly not of the sort in Belle’s world. He was racking his thoughts for something to say and nearly swallowed his tongue when an unfamiliar voice said his name.

“Arden? Hi!”

It frightened him for a moment that someone had recognized him, but when he turned, he found Ruby heading over. The sigh he felt rise in his chest hiccupped a little. 

He smiled. “Ruby.”

She stepped between himself and Walsh, still looking very much the wolf. Only, he now knew that she was more or less a friendly one.

Ruby returned his smile. “I didn’t know you’d be at the match.”

“Neither did I,” he said. “I’m just tagging along with Belle.”

“How are you? I hope our scene at dinner the other night didn’t upset you. You looked kind of startled.”

“No, it’s fine. Everything’s fine,” he told her quickly. 

Ruby reached over, plucking a stray sliver of grass from the shoulder of his sweater. He tugged it straight self-consciously. It was one that Belle had chosen at the shop, herself - rich red and gray argyle that she said flattered him.

“Everybody out here on the sidelines looks so nice! I’m all sweaty and dirty.” She brushed a hand across the side of her white uniform shorts.

“Well, you do have a good excuse. You’ve all but ploughed up the pitch.”

“Oh, I love it,” she said with a bright smile. “I get beaten up and bruised, but it’s the best catharsis after the stress of all that business stuff with Granny.”

Belle looked to Zelena, catching her glaring over toward Arden. She frowned, but she focused on concluding her conversation with Senator Drake for the moment. There was more she needed to say, but she wanted to get her lawyer occupied elsewhere first. She finally excused them and walked away with Zelena next to her.

“Where did you meet this ‘good friend’ of yours?” Zelena asked abruptly.

“After I left the dinner party at your place. I got lost and pulled over for directions, and there he was.” It wasn’t a lie, Belle rationalized. She was simply omitting certain details.

“What does he do, then? Does he work?” her lawyer asked. “Trust fund kiddie?”

Belle gave her a scolding look. “He’s not a child.”

“He’s younger than you.”

“Barely.”

Zelena laughed. “You forget I know how old you are!”

Belle rolled her eyes. It was unladylike, but she’d had quite enough of Zelena over the last few days.

“He’s… in sales,” she said. “An entrepreneur.”

“Oh, that sounds promising. What kind of sales is he in?” her lawyer pressed.

“Zelena.” Belle sighed. “Why is it any of your business? He’s my friend.”

“I’m sure you’ll dismiss my concerns,” Zelena said with a put-upon sniff.

“All right. Concerns. Let me hear them.”

“We’ve known one another for a long time now. I’d say I know you very well,” Zelena began, and Belle thought she differed on that assumption, but she let her continue. “There have been changes in you over the past week. Since the party. I can’t help wondering if it’s this b- this man who’s had some sort of influence over you. Particularly after seeing him rub shoulders with one Ruby Lucas.”

Zelena pointed over Belle’s shoulder at them, and Belle turned to look. She saw Arden and Ruby laughing. The tall, svelte girl in her rugby uniform brushed something off Arden’s sweater.

“They aren’t ‘rubbing shoulders,’” she said. “They met at the dinner at Mastro’s the other night.”

“And somehow that makes them besties? Mm. That doesn’t sound right, Belle,” Zelena said from behind her. “He appeared out of thin air to help you in a time of need, and now he’s weaseled into every corner of your life? _And_  he’s flirting with the woman whose family company we’re trying to buy out? How very convenient.”

Belle turned away, boggling at her lawyer’s insinuations. “You honestly believe he’s- what? A corporate spy?” She laughed.

Zelena huffed. “You tell me! It happens, Belle. Industrial espionage takes corporations down all the time. _We’ve_  used it, for fuck’s sake. You know better than that!”

“He’s not a spy,” Belle assured her. “Trust me. He’s not.”

“How can you know?”

“I know. I’m certain.”

“If you’ve only just met him, there’s no way you can be so sure.” Zelena gave her a challenging look. 

With her irritation toward her lawyer peaking, Belle lowered her voice, hoping to calm Zelena’s paranoia and shut her up. “He’s not a spy. He’s a- he’s an- an escort.”

Zelena froze, then laughed loudly before saying, “What?”

Belle nodded to show that she was in no way joking. Zelena leaned to look at Arden again, and she gave him an appraising look that managed to get under Belle’s skin.

“I was lost on Hollywood Boulevard that night,” she explained. “I was upset and your GPS wouldn’t work, and I had to stop to ask for directions. And he was there. He guided me back into Beverly Hills. There is nothing dangerous about him. Not to my company and not to me.”

Zelena broke into an even more hysterical laugh. Belle frowned at her, crossing her arms while she waited for her to stop.

“Belle! Oh, Belle,” Zelena said when she caught her breath. “A hooker? You are the only billionaire CEO I know who could pick up street trash _accidentally_. That’s perfect!” She laughed again and feigned wiping a tear from beneath her eye. “Oh, that’s just you all over.”

“I wish I hadn’t told you.” Belle shook her head and turned to walk away. While her lawyer still snickered, she said back over her shoulder, “I’m going to speak to Senator Drake again. You go and talk to someone you ideally can’t insult.”

She put on her business smile as she approached the senator for the second time. “I’m so sorry about that. Being good at manipulating the letter of the law doesn’t always make for the most amenable personality.”

“Aren’t you preaching to the choir,” Senator Drake said with a grin. “I hope the information I found for you is what you need?”

“Yes. Yes, it’s perfect. Thank you so much,” Belle said. “There’s no change in conditions since the report, is there?”

“None at all,” the senator assured her. “Everything is still just as I outlined it for you.”

Ruby was just leaving to go back to her teammates when Arden saw Belle’s lawyer heading toward him again. He wished for an excuse to get the hell away, but she had him cornered before he could come up with anything in the unfamiliar space.

“So,” she said, drawing the word out. 

She walked through the middle of the quilt he and Belle had brought with them, stopping just next to him. Arden took a small and subtle half step aside.

Zelena looked directly at him. “How are you enjoying the game?”

He wanted to get away from her. The _‘don’t get in the car’_  feeling he got off of her was overwhelming. But it wasn’t polite, and he refused to embarrass Belle yet again.

“I’m enjoying it,” he said, trying to make passable conversation. “I’ve never been to a live match before. It’s different from watching on the TV.”

She laughed with a deceptive lightness. “Oh, I’m sure it is.” 

Zelena smiled, and he could see the edge to it when he glanced over. She reminded him very much of Cora in all the worst ways.

“These people, the finery, the clean clothes…” She paused, her eyes boring into him. “Quite the change from Hollywood Boulevard, is it not?”

Arden’s stomach turned and he felt like he might be sick. He looked over at her in shock. He couldn’t have misheard, could he?

“Pardon me?” he asked, his smile strained.

“Oh, yes. Belle told me how you met. I won’t tell anyone, though. Don’t worry.” Zelena winked at him.

Arden suddenly needed a scalding shower. He turned his face away.

“After Belle’s finished with you, what do you say you and I get together some night? Hm?” She reached up, running the cold backs of her fingernails up the side of his neck. “I’m certain I could match whatever it is she’s paying you to warm her bed. Among other things.”

He cringed, then downright flinched when the woman curled her hand over the back of his neck. He fought with the disgust in his expression, the panic in his gut, trying to choke both back. 

“Sure,” he grit out, having the distinct feeling that she wouldn’t leave him alone until he agreed, and that it wouldn’t go well if he didn’t. “We could do that.”

She squeezed with her hand before letting go. “Excellent. I have other business to attend to,” she said before walking away.

Arden raised his hand to his neck, rubbing at the skin where she touched him, trying to get rid of the feeling of her touch.

The teams were summoned back to the pitch so that the second half of the game could begin. He saw Belle leave the blonde woman she’d been talking with, and he met her with a smile that sat in direct contradiction of the gnawing he felt in his belly.

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Arden followed into the suite and walked in the opposite direction as soon as he could get out of the entryway. He felt her hand touch his as he turned, and he pulled away as if the contact stung.

Belle stopped short. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he snipped, walking off with his arms wrapped around him.

She frowned and altered her course from her desk. “Well, that makes five syllables in total I’ve gotten out of you since we left the club. Can I please have more? What’s going on? Are you angry about something?”

“Liar. Betrayer. Hypocrite. There, that’s eight. How are those syllables?” he said over his shoulder as he disappeared into the bedroom.

Arden grabbed the gray tweed reefer coat discarded this morning as being too warm, putting it on as if it would somehow protect him from his own insides. 

“I- wh- what?” Belle stared after him.

“Why did you buy me all the clothes? Why ask me to get all dressed up for the places you’re making me go?” he asked, wishing he could keep the anger and hurt from seeping into his voice.

He still couldn’t believe she’d told. All the trouble she’d gone to, hiding what he was, dressing him like one of her people. And she told. It smarted in a way he never expected it to. He knew what he was. It wasn’t as though he could forget. He knew what she was, and he was well aware that this was a temporary arrangement. A job. A trick. He couldn’t account for the way it hurt. 

“The clothing was appropriate for the function…” Belle followed when she lost sight of him as he walked farther into the bedroom.

“That’s _not_  what I mean,” he said, spinning to look at her when he realized she was in the room. His right hand, down by his side, rubbed thumb against forefinger desperately.

“Arden, stop fidgeting and just tell me what’s wrong.”

“Stop telling me to stop! I can’t help it!” He clenched his hands so tightly that he felt his nails bite into his palms. _“Why_  dress a dobbin up like a quarter horse if you’re just going to tell everyone it’s a broken-down nag anyway?” he said, his voice raising and his accent becoming thicker in a way he couldn’t help, either.

Belle drew a sharp gasp. Zelena’s big mouth. She knew that she shouldn’t have told her. She should have lied. Anything but tell her about Arden.

“I didn’t-” she began, but he cut her off.

“You did! She wouldn’t have known I’m a _whore_ otherwise, right?” He loathed how upset he felt over it. He shouldn’t be. It was his own fault. He’d let her start getting to him, he’d started believing in her kindness, and he was the fucking fool for it.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m furious with Zelena for repeating-”

_“It doesn’t!”_

Belle threw her hands out from her sides in exasperation. “I’m sorry! I only told her because she suspected you of being some sort of corporate spy. She saw you talking to Ruby Lucas and came at me, accusing you of using me for information.”

“Ugly I may be, but I am far from that stupid,” he snapped. “If you want to pass me around to your co-workers, why don’t you just let me know? I’m sure we can work something out! Hell, I’ve got a date with one already! Why don’t we just arrange a _gang bang_ while we’re at it?”

He hadn’t fought with anyone so since he’d left home. He hadn’t actually argued with anyone in years, and he’d forgotten how horrific it was.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, after you leave, Zelena’s already laid claim to me! Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“I’m not passing you around to any-”

He walked away, back into the main room, when she was far enough away from the door that he wouldn’t have to push past her.

“Arden, come back here,” Belle called after him, and he heard her footsteps as she followed. “I am _speaking_  to you!”

He spun on his heel to face her, stricken by her demand, and walked back to her automatically. She met him on the way.

“We discussed this,” she said. “You’re my employee this week, Arden. Now, I’m sorry that I told her, but I can’t do this right now. We have a dinner in an hour. I need to make a few calls and you need to change clothes.”

“I don’t belong to you,” Arden breathed.

She shook her head. “I never said-”

He spoke again, his voice stronger even as he felt increasingly disconnected and distressed. “I don’t belong to you!”

“I am not going to spend the next five days arguing with you.” Belle dropped her hands to her sides, tilting her chin up. “I apologized. Let’s just put this behind us and get ready for dinner.”

Arden looked at her incredulously. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I ever got in the car with you.”

He walked past her and back into the bedroom, gathering the clothes he’d arrived in.

“You don’t mean that,” Belle said, turning around to go after him again. “What would you have done if I hadn’t pulled over? What other car would you have gotten into?”

“Another trick wouldn’t have made me feel this cheap,” he bit off, bending down to snatch his shoes from under the lounge.

He grabbed his socks from the floor where they’d rolled, and he could hear her right behind him. He kept himself turned away from her.

“I want my money,” he said. “Whatever percentage I’ve earned. I want to go home. I’ll send the clothes you bought back to you.”

Belle stared at his back. She didn’t _want_ him to go. The thought of it made her feel lonely in a way that she wasn’t entirely certain she understood. But she couldn’t force him to stay.

“The clothes are yours,” she told him more softly.

She hadn’t expected him to leave this way. It was supposed to happen in a few days, when she had time to come back around to going home to an empty house, and to stop pretending that he was a part of her life. 

Belle went to the closet, opening the safe, and took out the security bag that sat inside. Dialing the combination into the lock on the end of the bag, she unzipped it and sorted out the full amount of money they’d agreed on. She laid the stack of bills on the chaise next to where he stood and walked away. If he wanted to leave, that was his choice. She went out onto the balcony off the main room, unable to watch him go.

Arden looked at the money, hesitating for a long moment. He needed it. He and Jeff, they both needed it desperately. It was food, rent, survival. So much as looking at it made him feel filthy, though. 

He would find another way to make the rent. Leaving her money right where she’d put it, he walked from the bedroom, through the suite, and out the front door as quietly as he could.


	14. Bring You to Your Knees

The door slammed. She walked through the silent suite, going back into the bedroom. Belle didn’t know what she would do with the clothes he’d left behind. She could donate them to a shelter, she supposed. There was always a need for good clothing, particularly around the holidays. She quickly decided to call a bellboy up to fetch them before she left town. It would be the best thing.

The place felt emptier than it had even before Arden. She’d stupidly gotten accustomed to having him around in the few days he was there, knowing good and well how temporary it was. He had been so lovely to have around, though. Having someone there when she came in from work, someone to accompany her out, to surprise her, to listen.

She shook herself. She’d _paid_  Arden to do those things. It was ridiculous to get sentimental about him doing his job.

Belle turned to go back into the main room, fully intending to sulk and wallow for the hour she had before she needed to leave for the dinner. Her gaze happened to skim across the bed, catching the money that still lay there. He hadn’t taken it. The implications flooded through her head.

“Oh, God,” she breathed, and she found herself running back through the suite.

Arden stood at the elevator, willing it to hurry the hell up and arrive. The sooner he got out of the hotel, the sooner he could forget that any of it had ever happened. The sooner he could forget the way her hands felt on his skin, the way it felt to have her wrapped around him, the way she said his name.

His eyes stung. He was a fucking idiot. She’d gotten into his head and under his skin, and he’d let her. Worse, he’d liked it. You _never_  got emotionally involved. He knew better. And now he hurt, and it was too late to do anything about it.

He was filth. Of course she didn’t see him as a person. He was a hooker, and he’d have done well to remember that through the entire ordeal. He couldn’t pretend that away; it was all over him. She didn’t want him and he couldn’t blame her. Belle deserved so much more than something like him, anyway.

“Come on, come on,” he hissed, reaching to press the button again as if it would bring the elevator up faster.

The nasty voice clawing through his thoughts had him trembling inside and out, and he felt the heat in his face as his tears overflowed. He was contemplating taking the stairs just to get off Belle’s floor when the elevator and the suite door opened at the same moment. The attendant smiled at first, but it fell away when she saw him.

Arden stepped inside and turned his face away. The last thing he wanted was for Belle to see him crying, to let her think she’d had some kind of effect on him.

“Ground floor,” he told Mulan, and she reached for the panel.

“Arden!”

Belle called out to him when she saw him still there in the hallway. He hadn’t gone. She still had a chance. Whether she deserved it or not was another matter entirely.

She lurched forward, grabbing one of the elevator doors just before they met. The sensor slid them open again and she sighed with relief.

“I’m sorry,” she said before he could respond. “I didn’t say it well before. But I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Not at the match, and not what I said when we were arguing.”

Belle stepped onto the threshold of the elevator and reached out, laying a hand on the arm he had wrapped around his clothes and shoes. He wouldn’t look at her and she couldn’t blame him.

She told him once again, “I’m so sorry, Arden.”

Arden looked down at her hand. It took him a while longer to steel himself enough to shift his eyes up to her face.

What was he supposed to do? Tell her that he accepted her apology? That it was all right? He didn’t feel either way. He still hurt, and nothing about _any_ of it was all right.

Her hand squeezed through the coat and sweater sleeves. “Please, don’t go? I don’t want you to leave.”

His expression gained a bit of surprise at the way she said it, but he couldn’t help being cautious. “Because I’m your employee. You have to get your money’s worth,” he said, but there was no venom in his words. It was just the way things were. 

She frowned and let her hand slip away from his arm. “No. That isn’t why.”

“Then why?” he asked, ducking his head again. “You don’t need me.”

“Because I _want_  you here.”

“What you did…”

Belle’s heart ached at the look in his eyes. He seemed suddenly like such a little boy. “I know. I didn’t mean to.”

“Still,” he murmured into his coat collar.

“Yes. That doesn’t make it better,” she acknowledged. “Please, stay the rest of the week?”

Arden looked down at his own clothes in his arms, thinking. He wanted to stay, and he hated that he wanted to. He’d be better off just going back to Jeff and their apartment. It would be safer. 

He stepped out of the elevator, past Mulan and carefully past Belle where she stood aside between the elevator doors. Keeping his eyes turned away from her, he headed toward the open suite. He waited inside and she met him there, closing the door behind them. 

She reached out to take his things, but he stepped back. “I’ll put them away,” he said, and he returned to the bedroom. He dropped his clothes on the lounge, taking the time to fold them neatly again and set his shoes underneath.

Belle watched from the doorway. There was too much inside her to ignore - aching, and relief, and happiness that she’d have him with her, even if only for a few more days.

“Please don’t tell anyone else,” he said when he turned. His eyes flicked up to meet hers, but they flicked away again.

“I won’t. No one else,” she promised. 

She took a couple of slow steps into the room, touching his arm first to make sure that he would accept it. When he didn’t pull away, she moved near enough to wrap her arms around him. He tensed at first, but he relaxed after a moment. A few seconds more, and he put his arms around her in return and pressed his face to her shoulder.

“I’m sorry that I ruined the rest of the match for you,” she told him. “I wanted you to have fun.”

Arden wasn’t sure he understood why she was hugging him. But it felt _good._ He hadn’t been hugged in so long without it being a precursor to a demand for something more, and he’d forgotten how nice it was.

“I had fun during the first half,” he said, his words muffled against her dress. 

He felt her rub at the middle of his back before she let him go, taking a step away. “I still need to make those calls,” she said, giving his chest a pat. “And I’m going to put in a call to the hosts of the dinner and let them know we won’t be attending.”

“We’re not going?” He blinked, watching her walk from the room.

“It isn’t an important event,” she said as she took her phone from the desk. “Everyone going to the dinner already knows one another. There’s no networking about it. All there’ll be is passing around gossip and getting smashed, and I would rather stay in tonight.”

Arden shrugged out of the coat, laying it over the chair again. “If we’re not going to the dinner, where are we going?”

“Nowhere.” Belle found Abigail’s number and sent it through, smiling over at him. “Get comfortable, find something for us to watch?”

Frederick and Abigail were as understanding as she knew they would be. She’d spun a little white lie about not feeling well after the rugby match, saying she’d gotten a bit of a chill. Abigail had simply offered get well wishes and said that she looked forward to getting together the next time Belle was in town.

With everything settled, as far as plans went, she walked quietly past the living room area where Arden scrolled through a list of movies. Having no intention of spending her evening in wearing an uncomfortable pantsuit and hairpins that already hurt, she took her hair down and changed into one of her nicer nightgowns. She wasn’t sure whether Arden would appreciate the change. The thought made her feel better, though.

“Did you find something?” she asked as she went back in.

Belle felt a little gratified when his gaze slid down the length of her. She saw the second he realized what he was doing, and he brought his eyes back to her face.

“I thought you might want to give an opinion,” he said, motioning to the television with the remote. “I looked around, but I wasn’t sure if you actually liked those Christmas movies, or if you’d rather watch something more-”

“Anything is fine.” She sat down in the space he’d left between himself and the arm of the sofa. 

Arden looked at the choices on the screen, not sure whether she would care for any of them. It was one thing to watch a movie while she worked on her phone or laptop, but if she meant to sit and watch with him, he wanted it to be something that appealed to her, too. He hovered over one and looked to her.

“That looks interesting,” she agreed, and he went through the process of button pushing until it finally began playing.

He toed his shoes off, pulling his legs up to fold them. It seemed they were in just the right spot,  because as the movie got going, Belle rested her arm across his knee. The point of contact somehow went a ways farther in soothing his feelings over.

More than once, glancing over to make sure that she was okay with the movie, Arden caught wistful look on her face. He wondered what it was that she wanted so badly. She’d remarked upon having no friends. Was it that? Was it the family situation? It only just occurred to him to wonder what she did over the holidays.

They watched as a live pageant of the first few ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ verses turned up in front of the family’s home, and Belle leaned her shoulder into his. She was glad she’d agreed on the little holiday movie. They weren’t usually her cup of tea - they left her feeling more wanting than encouraged - but she discovered that it was _nice,_  watching with him.

Arden laughed and she looked over, smiling. He had a sweet laugh. Unable to resist, she reached up to touch his hair, stroking the ends between her fingertips. He turned to her with an expression somewhere between surprise and question. 

“Come here?” she said, straightening her nightgown over her lap.

His smile changed, turning more into a shy curl in the corner of his mouth. He shifted over so that he had room to lie down, and he rested on his back, his head on her thigh. Belle draped her arm across his chest and went back to watching the movie so that she didn’t watch him so intensely.

Arden felt selfish for enjoying it so much when she started combing her fingers through his hair, but he took comfort in the way she touched him. There was still a part of him that felt tense and odd, and he wasn’t sure if it was something broken or something growing.

The movie turned out a heartstring tugger, with a wife having written her widower a letter to be delivered the Christmas after her death, and neither of them escaped being affected. Belle pretended not to notice how Arden sniffled even as she grew teary, herself. With the end of the movie, he sat up and rubbed at his face.

Neither of them had spoken much during. She supposed he didn’t know any better than she did how to re-break the ice that had frozen over with their argument. If she knew him better, she thought perhaps she could have fixed it with a few words, but all she had was the very narrow scope of the past few days to look at. She’d done something that ended in him being hurt, and she owed him more of an explanation than she’d been able to give before everything had blown up.

“I was jealous,” she told Arden sheepishly.

“About what?” he asked, clearly confused with her admission.

Belle pinched a pleat in the silk of her nightgown with her fingertips. “I saw you talking with Ruby Lucas. The smiling, the laughing - I don’t know.”

If she were being _completely_ honest with herself, maybe she had felt some measure of possessiveness when she saw Ruby touching him. And maybe she’d easily said aloud what he did because it seemed to give her some part of him. He’d been right to remind her that he didn’t belong to her.

“Is that why you told your lawyer?” Arden frowned, no less bewildered.

“What? No!” she said quickly, turning to face him. “God, no. That was- was some terrible judgment, and me thinking I could shut her up about the spying bullshit, and did I mention how sorry I am?”

He shook his head, giving her a funny look. “Ruby is gay.”

“She’s… oh.” Belle felt her face go warm. How had she missed that?

“She’s engaged to a woman named Dot Gale,” he explained. “She introduced me.”

“That name sounds familiar,” she said in an attempt to push past her embarrassment.

“Apparently she’s a fashion designer?” He shrugged. “Ruby said she just went independent from O-Z Industries and she’s making a killing.”

“Oh. _Oh,_  my God. She’s D. Gale Designs.” Belle smacked a hand to her forehead. “I’m an idiot. In so many ways.”

“You’re not an idiot.” He gave her that smile that tried to form in the corner of his mouth again. “You were jealous?”

She looked down at her hands. Her fingers still slid along a section of her nightgown. She’d fussed at Arden so often about fidgeting, and there she was. 

Arden leaned forward, trying to see her face. He didn’t want her to keep apologizing.

“Stop worrying about it,” he said. “We have four more days and some change. You should enjoy them.”

He rested his hands on her knees and she leaned to touch her head to his, nudging their foreheads together. Belle tilted her face up, and he knew what would happen, if he let it. 

Arden ducked his head before she could kiss him. She pressed her lips to his cheek instead, remaining close even after she broke contact. He felt her breath there and her warmth radiating against him for long moments before she sat back. She turned away from him, getting up from the sofa, and as he was hoping that he hadn’t insulted her by refusing her kiss, she took his hand.  

She pulled him up with her and along to the bedroom, stopping only to turn off the television and quiet the suite on the way. She brought him to the bedside and sat at the edge before letting go of his hand.

“What do _you_  want?” she asked.

He gave her a blank stare as he sat down on the bed next to her, feeling again as though he’d been dropped into water over his head. “What do you mean?”

Belle moved close, but she didn’t yet touch him. She wanted him to be the first to touch this time. “I mean, what is something that you desire? That… turns you on?”

He was still at a loss. Arden thought he must have done everything that could possibly be done, and every bit of it performed because it was something the customer wanted. He wasn’t given to fantasy that often; the few fantasies he did have were unattainable.

He frowned, having to consciously keep his hands still. “I don’t know.”

“What’s something you’d like to do, then?” Belle asked him. “Anything.”

Reaching out, Arden clutched a handful of her nightgown where it rode up near her knee. His face flamed hot, beginning at the back of his neck and blooming from there. What he _wanted_  wasn’t possible. Any of it.

His face began to fall and he clenched his eyes shut to keep it from happening.

“It’s all right,” Belle whispered to him. She reached out, starting with tucking his hair back. She took his face between her hands and simply held them there. “You don’t have to say. It’s all right.”

When his face relaxed, she drew her hands back and gathered her nightgown between them, pulling it up. His hands loosened from the material so that she could take it over her head. Her hair caught in one of the straps, slipping free and letting the waves swing back across her shoulders as she discarded it. By intent, there was nothing underneath. Arden’s eyes skimmed briefly down her body before flicking aside and then back to her face, and when he smiled up at her, she gave him a pleased smile in return.

“May I?” she asked as her fingers found the bottom of his sweater. 

When he nodded, she eased it up, and he lifted his arms to make it easier for her. He followed with his undershirt, already gathered around his middle by the knit of the sweater. Belle reached forward to slide the end of his belt out of the buckle and pulled it right out of the loops.

He took off the rest by himself, standing to take down his trousers and boxers, and sat down beside her again. It wasn’t until he leaned down to pull off his socks that she saw perhaps a half dozen scars scattered across his back, each of them curved and no more than a couple of inches wide. She wondered, but she didn’t ask. There was scarring of a different sort on his right ankle that looked as if it might have been surgical, and her curiosity worsened. She was certain that she should have seen one or the other of them sooner - he’d been undressed in front of her more than once. Was she really that distracted?

Belle rested a hand on his thigh. “What do you think?” she asked him. “Where do you want to be?”

He seemed to consider for a second before lying back and opening his hands in invitation. She smiled as he made the decision, pulling her legs up onto the bed so that she could crawl up next to him. Arden took her hand when she started to kneel astride him, steadying her until she sat on his thighs. He reached to the nightstand for a condom.

“Here, let me,” she said, slipping it from his fingers.

She tore open the wrapper and pulled the condom from it before dropping the foil to the floor. He was half hard when he leaned back, and by the time she had the condom sorted out, he was ready. She held her lower lip between her teeth as she rolled it onto him.

“How is that?” Belle asked, running her fingers along his length. “Never put one on before.”

“You’re having quite a few firsts this week.” He gave her a slow grin before telling her, “You did it right.”

She moved up a bit until she knelt in position over his hips, and Arden felt her slide against the head of his cock as she shifted to get her balance just right. He brought his hands up to the outside of her thighs, spreading his fingers wide over her skin and holding her while she sank down onto him. She sighed as she filled herself with him. It was a sweet sound, and he couldn’t help smiling at the way her eyes fluttered shut.

Belle rested her hands side by side just below his chest. She began to rock against him, raising herself a little and sliding back down, and he allowed himself a longer look at her. He gazed up at the shape of her - the small curve of her breasts and the more generous one of her hips, the confident slope of her shoulders. Arden ran his hands up her body, squeezing at her hips before he slid his fingers along her sides. He formed his hands to her breasts and felt the warm firmness of her nipples against his palms. Running his hands back down, he settled them in the dip of her waist, his thumbs flirting against the soft skin of her stomach. He pushed them gently into her belly just below her navel, and the pressure made her mouth fell open with a little moan. She was beautiful, every part of her.

Arden thought he could hold onto the memory of her. He could think of her when he went back to the street. He’d never get her out of his head, anyway, but maybe she’d be a comfort rather than haunting him after all of this was over. 

The way Belle moved changed, her rhythm growing more needy. He felt the pull of orgasm getting close in his belly and he shut his eyes, willing it down. She hadn’t finished yet, and he couldn’t come before her. 

He didn’t realize she’d slowed again until she asked him softly, “Are you here?”

Arden looked up at her to find her sky blue eyes locked onto his. He gave a little nod. 

“I’m here,” he told her. “I’m right here.”

Belle leaned in, sliding her hands up toward his collarbones, then lifted one to touch his cheek. She _wanted_  to kiss him. Her attempt on the sofa had been half hope, half instinct with his nearness, and she was only glad that he hadn’t been upset by it. After the other things they’d done, it felt strange to hope for a kiss before he left her.

He moved one hand from her waist, and she missed it there until she realized he was bringing it down between her legs. He curled his hand and found her clit with the pad of his thumb, rubbing in a small circular motion just beneath it. With his more direct touch, she was suddenly right on the edge. 

“There! Right there,” she gasped, curling her hands over the top of his shoulders to give herself a little more leverage.

The first wave of it had her arching her back, and Arden went on stroking her as she came. Her hands squeezed tightly at his shoulders and she gave a shuddering moan, leaning in out of need to be closer.

Arden wrapped his arms around her as she laid forward onto his chest. He thrust up into her a few more times to finish, biting the inside of his mouth and whimpering. The feeling of her lying on him, warm and soft and breathless, was worlds better than the orgasm.

He ran a hand slowly along the middle of her back and waited until she was ready to move, not wanting to hurry her. She rested there for a few minutes before she sat up a bit to shift off of him. Arden felt the loss of her more than he expected. As soon as she’d moved, he sat up, doing his best to push the feeling away. He tied off the condom and went to the bathroom to clean up.

“Is it all right if I turn on the fireplace?” he asked when he went back in.

“Yeah, of course.” Belle pointed toward the far bedroom wall. “You just turn the switch there beside it.”

He turned the ignition switch and adjusted the flames before going back. It wasn’t really _cold._  Los Angeles never got truly, bone-numbingly cold the way it had back east or in Glasgow. But the fire still felt good.

Belle reached out for his hand when he neared the bed again, tugging him down. He pulled the covers up and turned onto his stomach, and she squirmed closer to him.

“Finally made it to the bed, didn’t we?” he said with a grin.

She laughed and turned over onto her side. Arden looked calm, for the most part, and as if he were himself rather than hiding behind some act running over with bravado. She saw something very tired around his eyes.

“Did you _want_  to do that?” she asked.

He blinked at her, his smile turning into a look of confusion. “Didn’t you enjoy it?”

_“I_  did,” she said. “But did you?”

Arden opened his mouth twice to speak before he managed to. “I finished, if that’s what you-”

“It isn’t. That’s not what I meant,” she interrupted, forcing away the frown that wanted to surface. “Did you enjoy what we did? Did you find pleasure in it?”

There was a stretch of hesitant silence. He brought his smile back up, but it was an unsure one. “I enjoyed making you feel good.”

Belle shook her head. “That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he admitted.

“I want you to tell me the truth,” she said, eyeing him.

He took a breath before giving her a small piece of the truth she asked for. “It doesn’t matter whether I enjoyed it.”

She pushed up onto her elbow, looking down at him. Arden didn’t understand the expression on her face.

“Of course it matters,” she told him.

He caught on. It mattered to _her_  what he felt when they had sex. He found himself unable to tell her straight out that he didn’t get the same pleasure from it that she did, fearing her reaction. 

“It’s never mattered to anyone else,” Arden said, taking a safe middle.

The frown he saw her holding back at the corners of her mouth began to show itself. “No one’s ever asked whether you wanted to do what you were doing?”

“It’s what I’m on the Boulevard for,” he pointed out. “That’s the entire point of me.”

“That’s _not_  the entire point of you, Arden,” she said, and her frown grew deeper.

“I have to work. Whether I feel like it or not,” he tried to explain, not sure if she’d get it. “If I turn people down, I don’t get paid. If I’m impolite, I don’t get paid.”

If he expressed disgust about anything in regards to a customer, he didn’t get paid. He had learned quickly to be compliant and amenable, to choke back anything he didn’t want, to take it no matter how uncomfortable it made him or how much it hurt. To get paid. Because not getting paid meant not eating and not having a roof. He stopped short of telling her quite that much.

“That’s not how it goes _here,_  with me.” Belle laid down again, tilting to lean against him.

Arden was so tempted to believe her.

“Did you want to say no to me?” she asked. “Truthfully?”

He considered, thinking about how he felt before and during. “No.”

“You can say no,” she told him, moving to run the ends of his hair between her fingers. “If you turn me down, I won’t ever be upset.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He smiled a little. It hadn’t occurred to him either way.

“How did you end up in this?” Belle asked carefully. “Doing this?”

He made a sound that might have been a laugh if there were anything that sounded happy behind it. “You don’t want to hear that.”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

“Where do you want the story to start?”

She rested her forearm at the back of his shoulder, her fingertips tracing around the almost point at the top of his ear. “Wherever you think it should.”

The only person who’d heard any of it was Jeff, and even Jeff only knew the half of it. No one else had ever been around long enough to ask.

“I ran away. From my father. He wasn’t the most pleasant person to live with.” Arden rubbed his hand against the sheet beneath his pillow, distracting his mind from memories that were still too vivid. “He wasn’t a big man, but… eh, you’ve seen me. Never was much as a kid, either. Even when I got into my teens, he was twice as big. I had a hard time fighting back, and he could throw me across a room like I was nothing.”

Belle slid her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “No one could blame you for wanting to get away from that.”

“He’d put me in the attic when he was sick of looking at me. Lock the door, leave me ’til he wanted me to do something for him.” The fear of being forgotten had been the worst thing about it. At least it had been peaceful there. “It was this great space with nothing but dust and cobwebs and a dormer window. Every damn time, I thought about climbing out. I couldn’t work up the guts for the longest. But there was the once he locked me in and left, and I was sure I’d die there before he came back. Going on two days, and the window looked better and better. I climbed out onto the roof and jumped to the ground.”

Belle made a soft sound of dismay. “How far up was it?”

“Far enough I broke my ankle so badly it didn’t look like an ankle. A neighbor heard me yell and took me to the hospital.” He flexed his foot beneath the covers. “Five screws and a plate.”

_Well, that explained that scar,_ Belle thought. “Is that why you’re not great with heights?”

“Oh, no, they’ve always bothered me. I was so desperate to get out of the house, I just… jumped. Figured if I broke my neck, I’d be out either way.”

A more intense look of pity crossed her face, and he closed his eyes. He concentrated on how it felt, her touching him, the gentle scritch of her nails on his skin. 

“When it healed enough to walk on, I left,” he told her, taking a deeper breath. It had felt like freedom, at first, but that had worn off.

“How old were you?” she asked.

“Fifteen when I ran off. Took some junk from the cupboards and pawned it to pay for a passport and plane ticket.” He tried to force a smile, somehow not coming up with much. “Lived rough for a couple of months between running and leaving the country, but it was still better than my father.”

Belle petted his neck and waited until he was ready to go on. She couldn’t imagine how bad a situation he’d been in, that being homeless was more palatable.

“I ended up in Baltimore pretty quick, here. Worked bagging groceries and running deliveries. That’d be how I met Milah. She was the first girlfriend I’d ever had.” He huffed a dry laugh. “Only girlfriend.”

“You’ve only been in the one relationship?”

“Only the one. She was, ah- she was my first. Only one there, too. Before.”

Her hand rested against the back of his neck, warm and comforting. “How did it happen that you ended up here?”

“Milah wanted to be an actress. Was all she talked about. We saved money between us and left Baltimore for L.A. She was nineteen, then. I was seventeen…” He shook his head a little. It seemed like a hundred years ago that they’d gotten on a bus headed west. 

“I’m guessing the actress thing didn’t work out?” Belle asked.

“Not so much, no. By the next year, we had Bae.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You have a child?”

Arden pulled away from her to lean over his side of the bed, fishing his wallet from his trouser pocket. He pulled the photo from it and held it out to her. “That’s him. That’s Bailey.”

Belle smiled. The toddler in the photograph looked so much like his father that she wouldn’t have doubted him if he’d said it was his own baby picture. “He’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, he is,” he agreed proudly.

Arden smiled down at the picture, taking it back when she was finished looking. He ran his thumb along the edge before putting it away, setting his wallet on the nightstand before settling close to her again. 

“I worked anywhere that’d let me after we got out here. Flipped burgers, washed cars, worked at a pharmacy drive-through once. It kept us alive, kept a roof over our heads, barely that.” He remembered every rent day being a panic, every bite they ate being worried over. “But jobs always somehow just… went away. We started not being able to make rent and eat in the same month, and Milah took care of Bae, so she couldn’t work.”

He ground his teeth together over a wave of hurt. Milah had gone on audition after audition, before and after Bae was born. The only difference was that after Bae, she’d blamed him for never getting a callback, telling him that having _his_  son ruined her body. 

Belle ran a hand across his shoulder, resting it over the back of his neck again. He felt the knot that tightened in his chest loosen a little. 

“There was this night where we went out to try and see fireworks,” he said, his face pinching in reaction to remembering it. “It was already dark when we walked across Hollywood Boulevard, and the hookers were out. She saw some boys hooking, and…” He shrugged.

“Did you decide to go out?” Belle asked, though she was afraid she already knew the answer.

“Milah thought I should try.” Arden squeezed his eyes shut for a second before blinking them open again. “I wasn’t smart enough to find a decent job that could take care of us. Turns out you don’t have to be smart or good-looking to be a hooker. You just have to have something between your legs that somebody else wants.”

He felt sick at repeating almost word for word what Milah had told him that night after he’d put Bae down to sleep.

_What, do you want the mother of your child out there on the corner turning tricks? At least you doing it would make you good for something._

He flinched, and Belle curled herself close to him. In the beginning, after he’d started going out at night to work and managed to get customers, he’d gone home sick of people. His skin had crawled from strangers touching him inside and out, and he’d wanted nothing more than for Milah to put her arms around him. He’d learned quickly not to ask. They hadn’t even slept in the same bed after the first night he’d gone out. He had taken a blanket and pillow and slept on the floor next to his son’s playpen.

It hadn’t taken long before she started not wanting him to touch Bae. She’d said that she was afraid he would give the baby a disease. He’d been relegated to hovering near the rickety playpen that Bae slept in, just watching. After Bae got old enough to run around on his own, Milah hadn’t been able to stop him from going to his father. His son’s little hugs and kisses were the most precious of his memories.

“Arden,” Belle said softly, and he felt her hand turn, then the back of her fingers were stroking along the side of his jaw. “You’re not stupid. You are _so_  bright, and there is nothing wrong with the way you look. And anyone who’s told you any different did it out of cruelty.”

He only looked at her, face burning and absolutely lost. There was nothing he could imagine saying in response. Even if he could have believed her, it didn’t make up for the filth on the inside of him.

“Where is your son?” she asked after a few minutes of his silence.

“Milah packed up and disappeared in the middle of the night when I was working. That was… seven years ago?” His heart ached as he felt just how long it had been. Bae would be ten in a few months. “I haven’t seen either of them since.”

“I’m sorry,” Belle told him, and he’d lost count of how many times she said it in the last few hours. 

“I don’t know if I blame her or not,” he said miserably. “I miss him. I miss my boy with all my heart. But he’s sure to be better off not in the middle of what I do, isn’t he?”

Belle couldn’t answer that, and she wasn’t certain he meant for her to. She couldn’t stand how it felt, that he hadn’t known where his son was for that long, that his son was taken from him. And she couldn’t fathom how it must hurt for him.

She heard words leaving her mouth before she knew they were coming out. “I want to help you find your son.”

“You’d do that?” Arden asked, going still. “You _could_  do that?”

“I don’t know how much luck I’ll have, but…” She shook her head, smiling over at him. “I know so many people, I have so many connections, surely I can do something.” 

He turned his face toward the pillow, just breathing into it for a few breaths. He didn’t have anything to give his son, even if she were to find him. His boy couldn’t live the way he lived, around the things he saw and did. If he couldn’t have Bae with him, though, at least he could know that his son was all right.

Arden looked to Belle again. He didn’t know what she saw, but she reached out to brush his hair away from his face and leaned her head to touch his.

He couldn’t even pretend that his voice was steady when he offered, “Thank you.”


	15. Burn Hot Enough to Last

Belle checked the back of her hair in the mirror as she waited for the line to pick up in her own office. She was accustomed to it taking a few rings. Her secretary was excellent at his job, but he got a kick out of making people wait.

“French Knight Enterprises, Belle French’s office,” he grumbled at last.

“Leroy, do you remember the private investigator we used for the Boeman account?” she asked, unfazed by his gruffness.

“Sure do. Need to talk to ’em again?”

“I do, thank you.”

She heard the click of his keyboard and a series of short tempered noises before he came back. 

“Ain’t an emergency, is it?” he asked, and something sounded suspiciously like a keyboard being whacked on a desk.

Belle smothered a chuckle. “Not as such, no, but I would like to have the contact information soon.”

“All right. I’ll text it to you as soon as I find it,” Leroy said, and he hung up with no more than that.

She took her phone and went back into the bedroom, setting it on the nightstand. Arden was still buried beneath the duvet. He’d slept soundly and so had she, to her surprise. She couldn’t recall the last time she had slept through an entire night without waking to so much as check her phone. 

Belle sat down next to him, pulling the blanket back to unearth enough of his head that she could lean and press a kiss to his cheek. He was sleep warm and still smelled like her perfume. After a second kiss to his cheek, he wriggled and made a snuffling sound into the pillow before turning over to face her.

“Morning?” he mumbled, opening one eye.

She smiled and brushed the ruffled hair back from his face. “You don’t have to get up yet, but I’m leaving for work.”

He hummed a noise of protest and opened the other eye, too. “It’s early.”

“Not that early.” Belle patted his leg through the covers. “By the way, we’re going somewhere particularly formal tonight. I checked to make sure that your tuxedo is ready, and it’ll be delivered sometime in the early afternoon.”

“It’s the tuxedo sort of fancy?” Arden pulled a doubtful face. “What if I throw a Brussels sprout at somebody again?”

She pressed her lips together against a grin. “I promise, there’ll be no Brussels sprouts this time. We’ll have dinner afterward.”

The corner of his mouth tugged upward in a sleepy, teasing half smile. “That sounds more acceptable.”

“I won’t be late. All of my meetings are morning and midday, and there’s only the information sharing left afterward,” Belle told him as she reached for her phone again and stood. “I’ll have to get dressed, myself, when I get back, so there’s no hurry.”

“Good,” he said, turning onto his back and dropping his head into the warm pillow. “I like watching you get ready.”

She gave him another playful swat and shook her head. “Have a good day, Arden,” she wished him before leaving the room.

He tried to go back to sleep after the front door closed, but it turned out hopeless. Everything seemed determined to keep him awake, not least of all his own thoughts. Arden didn’t know what he’d been thinking the night before. He had spilled his guts more than he meant to. When he got started, it had all come out, one thing after another after another. And she’d been _so kind_  about it. About everything. From listening to his sob story to offering her help in finding Bae. 

There was never a day when he didn’t think about his son, but since telling Belle what happened, Bae hadn’t left his thoughts. He’d have given anything to hold his son again, but even if all he could have was the knowledge that Bae was all right, he thought he could handle that. As long as Bae was healthy and happy.

His stomach started to growl and he got himself out of bed to wash up and get dressed. As nice as room service was, he had a need to get out of the suite. There were restaurants downstairs, and he was sure that at least one of them served breakfast.

After a good shower and an encounter with Belle’s hair dryer, he pulled on a pair of trousers and a sweater that shouldn’t get him any sideways looks from Ms. Blanchard, if he happened to cross her path. He grabbed his wallet just in case charging to the room fell through and double checked that he had a room key before he left.

Mulan looked tired when the elevator doors opened on her, but she seemed to brighten up when he stepped inside. Before he could ask her to take him down to the lobby, she gave him an odd little smile over her shoulder. Arden managed not to wince, but he could just imagine what she thought of him after the display he’d put on the evening before.

“This is probably the most ridiculous thing you’ve heard of,” he muttered, looking off at the button panel instead of at her.

“No. Of course not.” Mulan’s smile opened and she turned to look at him, leaning her hands against the brass rail behind her. “I wouldn’t judge anybody’s relationship. Plenty of people would judge mine, and I wouldn’t do that to someone else.”

“Judge yours?” He glanced curiously over. “Gay?”

“Well, I do have a girlfriend. And a boyfriend,” she said, her smile growing brighter. Then, as if completely offhand, “They’re married. To each other.”

Arden tilted his head, looking more closely at her. “You’re with both of them?”

She took her phone from her uniform pocket, flicking through a number of pictures until she found the right one. In it, Mulan stood to one side of a slender redhead who held a small toddler on her hip, and a man with short hair and a heavy five-o’clock shadow stood on the other.

“That’s Rory,” she told him, pointing. “That’s Philip. We’ll have been together ten years in February. That’s our son, Pip.”

“Huh.” He thought it over, smiling at the happy trio she showed him. “It works out?”

“It works just fine. Better than fine,” she said as she put her phone away.

“And you’re not afraid they’ll get tired of you or anything?”

“Nope. Not any more than I ever was in a one-on-one relationship. I love them and I know they love me.”

He hummed thoughtfully, considering. “That must feel nice, being that sure of them.”

“Lobby?” she asked.

Arden nodded. “Yeah. Please.”

“So, anyway. I’m not judging,” she said, obviously intent on getting her point across. “If it makes you happy, there’s no reason not to _go for it.”_

“Oh. I’m not going for it.” He looked down at his shoes and the mosaic tile on the elevator floor. “There’s nothing to go for. It’s not that kind of… relationship.”

“No?” Mulan raised her eyebrows. “I’ve seen a lot of you guys in and around my elevator. Sure looks a lot to me like there’s something there to go for.”

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

“I’m not signing that right now,” Belle said as she gathered her things back into her attaché case. “I haven’t read it. You should have given it to me this morning.”

Zelena made a scoffing sound. “ _I’ve_ read it, and as your lawyer, you can take my word that it’s just fine and ready for your signature.” She dropped it right on top of the files that her client was attempting to put away.

With a shake of her head, Belle took the not insignificant sheaf of papers that Zelena was so insistently shoving at her and set it aside. She wasn’t sure whether it was her lawyer or herself, but Zelena had been dancing on her last nerve the last few days. Belle was certainly angry with her. She knew that it was partially her own fault for telling the vicious woman anything at all about Arden in the first place. Zelena, however, had absolutely known what she was doing when she approached Arden the way she had.

Belle couldn’t exactly give her lawyer the silent treatment, but she did hope that Zelena noticed how cool and short she’d been toward her all day. Either way, the papers were not getting signed today. She hadn’t laid eyes on them before they’d been tossed at her. Zelena knew better.

“Everything on my docket is in limbo, and that won’t change between now and in the morning. Which, as it happens, is when I’ll be back.” Belle closed her case and took her purse along with it, steering around the end of her desk and Zelena as she headed out.

Her lawyer was right on her heels. “Isn’t this early for you?”

Belle stopped at the office secretary’s desk and waited until she’d finished the call she was on. “Glinda,” she said with a smile. “The tickets are waiting at my hotel, right?”

“Yes, Ms. French.” Glinda grinned up at her and slid a receipt across the desk with one bubblegum pink nail. “Everything has been arranged precisely as you asked.”

“Good. Excellent.” Belle put the receipt in the front pocket of her case. “You’re an angel.”

“Belle! Where do you think you’re going?” Zelena snapped from behind her.

She slipped the strap of her purse onto her shoulder. “I have to go get ready for a date.”

Zelena, still following her, gave a derisive laugh. “What, with the prossie?”

Belle wheeled on her lawyer. She said nothing, but the glare she gave was enough to make even Zelena take a step back.

Flustered and irritated, Belle made her way down to the building lobby and out to her waiting car. She asked Graham to put up the partition for a little while and simply drive around. It would give her time to mutter to herself about her lawyer’s apparent lack of decency and calm her frustration. She didn’t want to take it all back to the hotel and Arden.

When she felt on an even keel again, she tapped at the partition so that her driver would roll it down. “Graham, do you know of any florists between here and the hotel?”

“Yes, ma’am. I certainly do,” he said, glancing up at her in the rearview mirror. “Would you like to visit one of them?”

“Please. The nicest you know.”

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Belle played with the scarf Arden had given her, running it through one hand and then the other. She was ready to go and waited only for him to finish getting dressed.

“Arden? How close are you to being ready?” she called toward the bathroom. “We need to leave soon.”

“Almost done,” he said, his voice muffled through the door. Just afterward there came a soft and annoyed, “Damn it, damn it.”

She turned to look in his direction. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I-” There was a growl and a thump. He finally emerged, annoyance clear in his features. “The tie.”

Arden knew she had been ready for half an hour. He’d insisted that he could get dressed by himself. Tie and all. The tuxedo had been delivered right after noon and he’d opened the garment bag as soon as the man from the boutique left. It was something of a curiosity to him. He had never seen a tux in real life.

Getting ready had started out easy. Trousers, shirt, waistcoat. But he felt tricked by the thing beyond that. The most troublesome part was the bowtie - though the cummerbund was a beast all its own - and he went back into the bedroom with it hanging undone around his neck.

“Oh…” Belle whispered when he walked out, and she smiled when she saw him.

His mouth fell open. He beamed. “You look-” Arden shook his head.

“As do you,” she said. “So handsome.”

He looked down at himself as she walked over. “I don’t look absurd in it?”

“Not in the least,” Belle told him as she ran her hands down his silk lapels.

Arden tilted his head, admiring her in her strapless dress. The silver and gray of it were reflected in the shimmer of her heels. She’d twisted her hair at the sides and gathered it into a pretty bun at the nape of her neck, and somehow the effect made him want to get his fingers in it.

“I believe you’re missing a thing or two, though,” she said. “Mm, well, besides a tied tie. Come here.”

She reached up, tying the bow at his throat handily, and took her time adjusting it so that the sides were even. Her hands lingered at his chest again. The smile she gave him found his heart, making it skip disconcertingly.

“What is this you say I’m missing?” he asked.

“Ah!” Belle held up a finger and hurried into the bathroom, taking a small, black velvet box from the vanity. 

He took it when she held it out, but hesitated to open what was obviously a jewelry box. “What is this?”

She gave him a mysterious look. “This is yours.”

Arden opened it carefully and peered inside. Glinting from a velvet cushion were a pair of round, gold cufflinks with some kind of tiny, pale blue stones lining the edge. There was a curlicued monogram ‘A’ in the bottom of the open center. When he turned the box toward the light to get a better look, he discovered that the monogram spun around a fixed point in the middle.

“It moves!” he said, delighted.

“I thought they would give you something to fiddle with.” Belle smiled as he turned the box this way and that. “Consider them an apology for all the times I told you to stop fidgeting.”

He looked at them a bit longer before it occurred to him that she really meant for him to keep them. “How much were these?”

“You don’t ask how much a gift cost,” she scolded teasingly.

“I can’t take this. Belle, they’ll be stolen so fast…”

“Well, I’m not taking them back. They’re yours.”

He looked down at them again, deciding that it was probably better he didn’t know how much she paid for them. He’d be afraid to wear them if he knew.

“Thank you,” he told her quietly.

“You’re most welcome.” Belle caught a hand on his shoulder and rose up to press a kiss to his cheek. 

She helped him put the cufflinks through his shirt cuffs, doing it far more easily than he could have. Arden smiled at her, wondering at the feeling that still grew beneath his ribs.

“One more thing,” she told him, and she took a small plastic box from the top of the dresser. “You’ve given me roses. Now, here’s one for you.”

From the box she took a small, pale yellow rosebud that had a lacing of red around the edges of its petals. She slipped the stem through the buttonhole in his lapel and used the supplied stickpin to secure it in place.

“Well,” she said, stepping back to take her wrap from the chaise, then whirled it around her. “Let’s go. If we leave now, we should be right on time.”

Mulan, as was usual, gave the pair of them an utterly neutral look when they stepped into the elevator. But Arden caught the smile that crossed her face when she turned to push the lobby button, and he thought of their conversation all over again.

He didn’t notice stares and didn’t feel observed as they walked through to the entryway. Belle held onto his arm, and all he could feel was her walking close to his side, her hand curled in the bend of his elbow. The sleek black car that remained at her beck and call met them out front of the hotel. It always felt strange to have the driver standing there, waiting with an open car door and closing it behind them, but this evening seemed all the more surreal. It was nearing dusk, and looking at Belle in her dress and at himself in his own getup, he wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if he wakened back in the apartment to find that every minute of being with her was a dream.

Arden expected to arrive at a restaurant, or maybe the theatre or some swanky event that Belle had scheduled. He was downright bewildered when he realized that they were turning onto the road leading to the airport. When they drove right onto the tarmac, he gave up on predicting anything at all and embraced the confusion.

Belle had a fabulous time simply watching him try to figure things out. She was confident that he would never guess where she’d decided to take him for the evening, and she could see as suspicions crossed his face and then faded away as they drove farther out. The look he gave her when Graham drove them onto the tarmac almost had her laughing.

“An airplane,” Arden said, looking up at the private plane when Graham came around to open the door and let them out. “You have an _airplane_?”

She grinned over at him as they walked the short way from the car to the airstairs. “How do you think I got here? Commercial airlines?” she teased.

“Silly me. A regular plane? Unthinkable. Perish the thought.” He gaped up at it as they got closer. ‘French Knight Enterprises’ was emblazoned across the fuselage in crisp blue script. “You still won’t tell me where we’re going?”

She only let her hand slip from his arm when she started up the set of narrow stairs. “Not yet.”

The sun was really starting to set by the time they got in the air. Arden had pulled the shade down over his window before they took off, and he did his best to not look like his stomach had relocated to somewhere around the vicinity of his toes. He hadn’t been on a plane in over a decade, and it was no less an awful experience than he remembered.

“The weather is perfect all the way in, Ms. French,” the plane’s attendant told her. “We should touch down in San Francisco in just under an hour.”

“Thank you, Astrid,” Belle said, smiling up at her. “Would you bring us some refreshment? Something bubbly but not alcoholic.”

The attendant gave her a nod and bounced off toward the back of the plane, returning a few minutes later with a pair of tumblers half filled with ginger ale. Arden was beyond grateful. The ginger and fizz settled his stomach somewhat.

Belle gave him a close look as he blew out a deep breath. “Flying doesn’t agree with you?”

“Heights,” he said, and he drained the rest of his drink.

She reached over the armrest, taking his hand. “We’re less than an hour out now.”

“I’m all right,” Arden told her. He set his glass aside and tried to convince his stomach, too.

It was properly dark by the time they arrived in San Francisco. They left the plane, getting right into a waiting limousine, and Belle looked over at him as he settled in beside her.

He fretted as they left the airport. “We’re late, aren’t we? I’m sorry I’ve made us late.”

“No, we aren’t late,” she reassured him. “Opening night never begins on time, anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

“Opening night?” he asked, considering occasions it might apply to.”You’re still not going to tell me?”

“You don’t want to be surprised?”

“You’ve given me a handful of surprises today. I wouldn’t mind knowing this one before I walk in.”

Belle waited a moment more before at last telling him. “We’re going to the opera,” she said, watching for his reaction.

“The opera.” Arden sat with that for a bit. “Aren’t operas performed in other languages?”

“Not always, but customarily, yes. The one we’ll be attending happens to be sung in Italian.” She took her clutch from the seat on her other side, leaning to look out.

Arden turned to see what she looked at. They pulled around in front of a heavy, white stone building with tall, arched windows and sets of twin pillars stationed across the second floor. It was nothing if not impressive. The limo stopped just down from the opera house entrance and their driver went quickly around to open the door.

“You’re sure we’re not late?” he asked as they headed up the stone steps.

“We’re just fine,” she told him, patting his arm where she curled her hand over it. “They’re only just going in.”

He didn’t miss that their footsteps were hurried. Belle took a pair of programs on the way without pausing and steered them toward the stairs leading to the upper tiers, to one of the boxes.

“Someone else bringing up the rear, I see,” a bent, elderly little woman in a sequined dress observed. 

Belle smiled over at her. “My companion here has been worried we’re late for the performance.”

“Oh, only fashionably so,” the woman said with a wink.

Arden chuckled nervously as they took their seats. “They had to be the highest seats in the house.”

“You’ll be just fine.” She smiled over at him. “I won’t let you fall.”

 _Too late,_  a little voice in the back of his mind chirped at him, and the thought shook him far more than the height did.

“The opera is sung in Italian, you said?” he asked, slipping one of the programs from her hand and inspecting it with entirely too much intensity. A woman in a white and pink flowered kimono was printed on the front, and the title stretched above her in long, angular lettering. _Madama Butterfly._

Belle looked at her own program. “It is, yes.”

He skimmed down the inside, not sure about any of it. “How am I meant to know what’s happening?”

“I think you’ll understand,” she said. “If you don’t, all you need do is let me know, and I’ll tell you as it goes along. Between the music and the acting, it’s fairly easy to follow even without knowing the language.”

Arden shifted to the edge of his chair. He wanted to see, but didn’t want to be close to the edge of the box, regardless of the wide barrier. 

“I hope you enjoy it.” Belle sat forward to be a bit closer to him. She opened her clutch and brought out a pair of small, white and gold opera glasses, offering them to him. “Here.”

He took them, giving them a look. “What are these for?”

“So that you can see the stage better, if you need,” she explained.

Arden gave her a sidelong look. “Wouldn’t we be able to see better if we were sitting someplace down in the audience?”

“These are-”

“The best seats. I know.” He gave her a playfully exasperated grin and took the glasses, setting them in his lap. The lights blinked. “What was that?”

Reaching over, she laid a hand above his knee. “Just a warning that the opera is about to begin. It’s to tell everyone to get to their seats.”

After a couple of minutes, the lights went down completely. A second after that, the curtains swept open onto the set stage. The band began to play, the music swelled, and Arden’s heart thumped faster almost immediately.

Belle sat, interested but calm, through the beginning of the production. Around fifteen minutes in, as Pinkerton revealed his true intentions, she heard Arden make an unhappy sound and her attention turned to him. She ended up watching his responses rather than the performance itself.

Arden hadn’t been sure when Belle told him that he would understand. As the opera went on, however, he did. He understood that the man had intended all along to abandon Butterfly when he was ready to return to America, and understood when she was abandoned by her family and friends during her wedding celebration. He understood that she waited _years_  for her husband to return. Arden understood that the man married an American woman, with whom he was returning to Japan, that Butterfly gave birth to a baby boy in her husband’s absence, and that he and his new wife planned to steal the child away. And he understood when Butterfly told her son how she loved him… right before she committed suicide.

The the opera ended and, after a moment, the lights came up. Belle realized that Arden was crying and had been for a while. She kicked herself for not taking into account that he might have identified with Butterfly to some degree

“Oh, Arden…” she whispered. She clicked open her clutch to pull a tissue from it, holding it out for him. He took it and blew his nose. “I’m so sorry. I should have warned you about the plot of the opera.”

“No.” He shook his head, wiping at his cheeks with his palms. “It was wonderful. Heartbreaking-” He hiccupped a breath. “But wonderful.”

The older woman they met on the way in left her own box a bit farther down, meeting them again as they made their way out. As they waited for the stairs to clear so that they could leave, she patted Arden’s arm.

“Bless your heart,” she said, apparently seeing the look on his face and the tissue still held in his hand. “A sensitive soul.”

Arden seemed a bit puzzled by her, but Belle tucked herself closer to his side. There was another side to the opera’s story that she wanted to tell him. They only needed to get back to the car first.

They waited for a minute or two at the base of the steps outside before the limousine pulled up just in front of them. Arden stepped forward to open the door ahead of the driver, letting Belle get in before he followed.

“In the book, Butterfly doesn’t die,” she told him once they were settled in. “It’s still very sad, but the maid tends her wound after she stabs herself with her father’s sword. They leave together with the baby.”

Arden looked to her with interest. “She doesn’t lose her son in the book?”

“No,” Belle said, smiling over at him. “She takes him, herself.”

He sighed and slid down a bit in the seat. “That sounds like the right thing to have done.”

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

It was late when they got back to the hotel. The lobby had hit its lull for the night, and the downstairs restaurants were all but empty. Belle stopped in at the busier of the two, asking whether the kitchen was still open, and the hostess gave them their choice of tables.

They sat at a table beneath a fixture in the ceiling that looked like hundreds of bubbles floating on the air. Arden paid more attention to it than he paid to the food, and when Belle gave the fixture more than a passing glance, she couldn’t really blame him. As for herself, she had a hard time keeping her eyes off _him._

“What do you think of pajamas?” she asked as they headed slowly between the elevator and the suite door.

He gave her a teasing grin. “In general, or…?”

Belle gave him a gentle bump with her shoulder mid-step. “For the rest of the evening.”

“You don’t seem to sit around in your pajamas often,” he pointed out.

“I’ve had a busy week. At work and here, too.” She smiled over at him. “I did wear a nightgown last night.”

“That… was a nice nightgown,” Arden said, his smile changing a bit.

Belle squeezed his arm against her side. “You liked it?”

“I did. I liked it,” he admitted, and she saw pink creep into his cheeks. “Wasn’t quite pajamas, though.”

“Well, if we’re being so precise, I have actual pajamas.” She let go of him to take the room key out and open the door, letting them into the suite. “So, my question. What do you think of getting into our pajamas and just having a good night?”

He followed her in and shut the door, watching as she swept her wrap from around her. She draped it over her arm and left her clutch on the desk before swaying off to the bedroom.

“What defines this ‘good night’?” Arden asked, going after her. 

Belle began relieving herself of her jewelry, putting her bracelet on top of the dresser and carefully taking out her earrings to set inside the circle of it. She turned to Arden with her lower lip pinched between her teeth. “What would you say to entertaining ourselves with board games?”

“Board games?” If not for the look on her face, he would have thought she was joking.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure the hotel can manage to find some to bring up.”

It had been years since he’d played a board game. Not since he was a kid, last he could remember. “Yeah. We can do that.”

The front desk did have access to a nice choice of games, Belle discovered when she called down. It only took them a few minutes to bring the boxes up, and she and Arden sat themselves on the floor in front of the television to decide.

“What should we try first?” she asked, sorting through the stack.

“I don’t know where to start.” Arden looked at the boxes as she spread them out. He recognized them all, but he’d only ever played one or two.

Belle reached for her favorite. “ _Scrabble_?”

“Never tried it, but I’m game…” he said with a smirk.

She clucked her tongue and rolled her eyes. “Terrible,” she said as she took the lid off the box.

Belle beat him bloody at _Scrabble_. He was actually a little embarrassed by the time they finished a full round, and he declined a second go at it.

“You have a great vocabulary,” she pointed out as she put the tiles back into their bag. “How are you such a bad speller?”

“It’s all by ear,” Arden murmured. He picked up the letter racks and handed them to her.

She pushed the box aside. “You choose the next one.”

Looking at the rest of the games she’d spread out, he considered each. He’d always been good at _Clue_. Something about putting everything together and figuring it all out just agreed with him. He leaned to take the box and set it between them.

As uncomfortable as Belle had been every time she had to break it to Arden that the word he was putting on the board was spelled incorrectly, she was equally as excited when he turned out to be such a handy mystery solver. She thought she was fairly good with _Clue_ , but he trounced her. She had one of the three pieces of the solution when he came out with Miss Scarlet in the Ballroom with the Revolver.

“Can we play another?” Arden asked as they gathered the pieces.

Belle looked to the clock on the wall behind her, finding that it was nearly three in the morning. She was tempted. “I should sleep,” she told him. “I have to go into the office in a few hours.”

“Don’t go in?” he said immediately, startling himself a little.

“Don’t go in?” She laughed and held her hand out for the figurines he offered. “I have things to do. The buyout we’re working on had become so precarious-”

“Please?” Instead of giving her the pieces, Arden took her hand. “You have your cell phone. If anything important happens, you know they’ll call you right away.”

Belle looked at him, in disbelief that she was actually contemplating it. The hopeful expression on his face was what decided her. “Well, it is my company…”

He beamed and went on helping to put the game away. “Which one next?”

They agreed on a round of _Sorry!_  before bed, and it turned out laced with more frustration and indignation than either expected. He didn’t know if he was terrible at the game or if she was simply merciless with her moves, but he hardly took a single turn without being bumped back to the start. Belle bumped his piece again when he was at last nearing his home square.

“Sorry,” she said as he gave a dramatic gasp, and she pressed her lips together over a smile, reaching for his piece to move it.

Arden grabbed it first. Snatching it out from under her fingers, he pulled his shirt up and dropped the game piece down his pajama pants.

Her eyes widened and a broad, open grin spread across her face. “Arden!”

“If you want it that bad, you can get it,” he said, daring her.

Belle leaned forward onto her hands. She crawled over the board, right into his open lap. The game was over, it seemed. With his invitation, she slid a hand between his skin and his waistband, presumably searching.

 _“That’s_  not the game piece,” Arden told her with a tilt of his head.

The way he said it brought a laugh from her. They were close enough that it would have been the easiest thing in the world to kiss her. He wanted to - _so_ badly. The warm, rosy perfume still lingering on her skin filled his senses, and the mischief that filled her eyes sent a wave of something down through his belly that he didn’t want to name. He’d almost tempted himself into it when she leaned away.

She took her hand back long enough to pull her blue flannel pajama top up. There was nothing underneath, and he felt himself respond to the sight of her stripping the shirt off over her head.

“I thought we were wearing pajamas tonight,” he said as she returned for his buttons.

Belle shrugged, giving him a warm look. “Maybe we’ll put them back on after.”

The black-on-black striped set she’d chosen in the shop turned out to be _very_  flattering on him, but just now she couldn’t wait to take them off of him again. While he shrugged out of his shirt, she pushed her pajama bottoms down her hips and sat on the carpet. 

Arden reached out to help her pull them down her legs and off her feet. She wasn’t wearing anything beneath them, either. He allowed himself a moment of admiration, following the shape of her legs as she curled them under her, looking at the way her hips swelled and then narrowed into her waist, the way her breasts moved when she breathed. Arden startled himself with the realization that he _wanted_  to touch her.

“How do you want it?” he asked, and it was a strange feeling, but he couldn’t bring up the bravado he was accustomed to putting on.

Sitting there naked, she caught one side of her lower lip between her teeth, pulling it back out slowly. He got hard almost all at once, and the suddenness of it left him reeling a little. He wasn’t sure whether his arousal was _his_  or because she wanted it, though. 

“How do you feel about from behind?” she asked.

He nodded, giving her a lopsided smile. “Sounds good to me.”

Belle was grateful that his collection of condoms had ended up migrating all over the suite, because when she looked to the coffee table, there were a couple there. She grabbed one and handed it to him before reaching out to pull open the tie at the front of his pajama pants. He slipped them off quickly and rolled on the condom.

He wrapped a hand around her ankle, and she gave a delighted squeal when he used the grip he had on her to pull her closer. She turned over, getting on her knees next to the sofa, and took one of the throw pillows to place under her as she rested her top half over it. Looking over her shoulder, she saw him kneeling up behind her, and she practically squirmed in anticipation for him. 

Belle felt his fingers run through her folds from front to back. She hummed happily at the sensation, but it choked off as he slid right into her and began thrusting immediately.

“All right?” he asked, his voice a little strained.

“Hard,” she told him by way of an answer. “Please, go hard.”

The rhythm of his thrusts slowed when he began hitching his hips more forcefully against her ass, and she felt each smacking collision all the way through her. Arden leaned over her, and she felt a wave of heat rush through her as more of his body made contact with hers. He reached out to find her hand on the cushion and laid his over top of it, lacing his fingers tightly between her own. She groaned and buried her face in the pillow, pushing back against him, desperate for more. 

Arden’s free hand moved beneath her, sliding down her stomach and abdomen until he had it between her legs. He began rubbing in large, massaging circles over her clitoris, and _oh, God_ , the contrast between his rough pounding and gentle hand had her keening, and she was glad that her sounds were somewhat muffled.

She was almost there when he murmured breathlessly in her ear, “Come for me.” And when she whimpered, he said again, “Come for me, Belle…”

Belle came hard, screaming into the throw pillow and pulling their tangled hands beneath her breasts, pushing herself harder back against him. She felt through the rush of her orgasm as he finished with another couple of sharp thrusts into her.

He petted her until the aftershocks had dissipated, then wrapped his arm around her and took her back to the floor with him. She sat in Arden’s lap, catching her breath. She felt as if every nerve in her body sang.

“Still want those pajamas back on?” he asked near her ear.

She giggled and leaned into him. “Leave the pajamas. Bed sounds better.”

“Bed, or-?”

“Just bed.” Belle turned her head so that she could see him. “It’s been a long day. Just being in bed sounds good.”

He bumped his forehead gently to her temple, waiting until she was ready to get up. When she leaned away from him, he let his arm slip from around her, letting her go. She stood and walked away, and he did all he could to avoid the feeling that she was done with him.

Belle paused in the bedroom door, though, looking back over her shoulder at him with a smile. “Aren’t you coming?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual Aids:  
> [Belle's opera dress](https://78.media.tumblr.com/e6f484e5f61d17b0dae982e261a72d26/tumblr_p6qog8xOPY1uvepcao2_1280.jpg)  
> [Belle's hair](https://78.media.tumblr.com/69bb52272a5c1ef9d9df0bb0a6ed2e38/tumblr_p0go1qFtoH1uvepcao1_400.jpg)  
> [Arden's cufflinks](https://78.media.tumblr.com/2480cabd228feb813ab77bf3cb1a4a0c/tumblr_p0go1qFtoH1uvepcao4_1280.jpg)  
> [Madama Butterfly](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3stgof-xyN0) (film on YouTube, in case anyone has a hankering for pain)


	16. Thrilled to Fantasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ( _Life in Detail_ has been nominated for **Best Movie AU** and **Smut, Romance** in the TEA awards! if you have a tumblr account and you’ve been enjoying my story here, please consider [going over and voting for it](http://theespensonawards.tumblr.com/submits).)

She was still sound asleep, snugged up to Arden with her head against his shoulder, when her phone woke her. Feeling fuzzy and wobbly from the rude awakening, she turned over and grabbed it to keep it from waking him.

There was a text from Leroy. She rubbed her face, trying to clear her head. He’d at last found and sent her the private investigator’s number. After putting in a call to her lawyer’s office to inform them that she was taking a personal day, Belle went to tend her morning business in the bathroom, putting on a robe before sitting down to call.

Knowing little as she knew about the situation, her part of the discussion was brief. It was Arden that Cleo really needed to speak with. Belle asked her to hold, and she turned her phone to her chest as she went back in to wake him.

“Arden, sweetheart?” She sat on the bed, patting him. When he only squirmed, she folded the duvet back. “Arden, wake up, there’s someone you need to talk to about your son.”

He turned over and pushed himself upright, giving her a bleary, wild-eyed look. “Bae?”

“Do you remember, I told you I’d see how I could help?” Belle laid her hand on his arm in an attempt to soothe him. “I got in contact with a private investigator I’ve worked with before. She might be able to look into it, but _you_ need to tell her everything you know about your son and ex-girlfriend. ”

Arden nodded, blinking hard in an attempt to gather his senses a bit. “Yeah. I can talk to her.”

“I have her here. Her name is Cleo Fox.” She offered her cell phone to him and told him again, “You’ll need to tell her everything.”

“I will. I’ll tell her,” he said, taking the phone and squinting at it before bringing it to his ear.

Belle stepped away in somewhat equal parts to give him privacy and to answer any important messages before they could get started on her day off. Whatever that was intended to be. She wasn’t sure how to handle a proper day away from work. 

Taking her laptop from the desk, she curled herself into one of the big living room armchairs. She heard bits of Arden’s conversation with Cleo carry through the suite. He described his ex-girlfriend and his son, agreeing to get a photo to her, and went into detail regarding her habits. Belle could tell that it was little enough. She only hoped that the private eye could make something of it.

Arden hung up with Miss Fox and stared at Belle’s phone for a couple of minutes before he grabbed his own from the nightstand. He texted Jeff, hoping that his roommate was at home and had his phone nearby. It took the space of time between sending the message and showering for Jeff to answer. Thankfully, his roommate was at the apartment and willing to do what he asked. Arden had him pull a couple of pictures down from the corkboard and unfold them so that Milah could be seen, then take photos of them and text them back. Jeff took his time about it, but the photos came through reasonably clear. Arden sent them along to Miss Fox’s number.

There wasn’t a lot to go on. He understood that. The chances that she could find either of them were worse than slim. There was that sliver of hope there that he never had been able to let go of, though. 

Arden partially dressed, pulling on trousers and an undershirt, and went to find Belle. He was unsurprised to discover that she’d snuck off to do some work. She sat with a small stack of files on the coffee table in front of her and her laptop balanced on her knees, muttering about someone’s lack of imagination as she typed. He went over and edged in next to her in the armchair, wriggling in until he sat half behind her. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, looking over Belle’s shoulder and leaning comfortably into her.

She cast an only slightly guilty look back at him. “Checking on some things while you were busy.”

“Mm,” he hummed. “Are there any emergencies?”

“What?” she asked.

“Is it something that can wait? Or something you have to do _right_ now?”

“No, it isn’t an emergency. The messages were there and I thought I’d take care of them before we go anywhere.”

He nodded and reached over, closing her laptop. Belle frowned over at him, and he gave her a slow smirk before climbing out of the chair. He began backing away from her.

“I was working,” she pointed out.

“I know.”

“You closed my laptop.”

_“I know,”_ he said with a smug grin.

Belle turned so that she could see him properly, narrowing her eyes.

He took another step away from her and toward the bedroom. “And doesn’t that make you want to just come and get me?”

She couldn’t help but smile at the way he lifted a hand to beckon her. He gave her a cheeky, waggish look, and she set her closed laptop aside, getting up from the chair. 

Arden waited until she was almost within arm’s reach before he took another large step back and turned to run. It was more of a trot, trying to make the most of the space in the bedroom, but she chased him past the fireplace and around the end of the chaise. He stopped next to the bed, and in the instant he took to make a decision between faking a dart for the balcony door or just clambering over the bed, she had him. 

He opened his arms, wrapping them around Belle as she lunged. Her momentum sent them into the side of the thick mattress and onto the floor with a shriek of laughter from her and a great big belly laugh from him. It absolutely silly, but holding her while she laughed was the most free he’d felt in years.

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Arden considered leaving his phone. The only messages he’d gotten over the last five days - aside from Jeff making sure that he was still alive - were from the occasional customer. He didn’t like the reminder or the feeling he got when he saw and had to respond to them while he was with Belle. He couldn’t forget, but he could pretend, as long as he didn’t have to look at a text asking whether his price for anal was still the same. If it weren’t for the worry that Miss Fox might try to contact him, he wouldn’t have slipped it into his pocket at all.

They spent the morning wandering around LACMA. Belle had assumed she might need to make suggestions regarding the exhibits they visited, but as soon as she showed Arden the campus map on her phone, he knew where he wanted to go. There was an installation of Wild West inspired paintings that interested him, and afterward, he asked if she would like to visit the Mexican art exhibit. They walked around installations of Chagall costumes and Japanese pottery, and a handful of exhibits in between. 

It was nearing lunchtime when they left the museum. Before Belle could think of a destination to provide for the driver, Arden spoke up.

“Let’s go for a walk,” he said, turning toward her on the seat. “Outdoors. In a park. Somewhere nice and green, without anything too dodgy in the grass?”

“Which park?” she asked, and he was glad when she sounded open to the idea.

Arden quickly realized that none of the parks he knew of were probably appropriate for the kind of walk she’d enjoy. He hadn’t seen many of them in the daylight, anyway.

“If I might make a suggestion?” Graham said from the front.

It was with no small amount of relief that Arden jumped at the offer. “Somewhere nice and big?”

Graham gave them a nod. “I know just the place.”

Belle recognized the area Graham took them to. They passed it every day on the way to the office from the hotel. She took her purse along, slung over her shoulder as they walked across the lawn near the park’s entrance. So far, Glinda had been great about keeping calls off her. It was only a matter of time, though, before her lawyer decided to nose in. She did need to keep her phone nearby in the event that something important happened. 

She cringed internally, having a sudden and unwanted memory of her father’s work habits. The office had always known where he was, whether they were home or on a rare family outing. Unlike many of the other adults she knew as a child, her father had been tickled pink when mobile phones came around, and he’d always had the newest model glued to his ear. She could remember solid weeks when she’d heard him talk constantly, and yet never say a word to _her._

Belle had a moment of resentment toward not only her father, but also the fact that she felt shackled to the company as he’d been. She tried to shake it off, reaching out to take Arden’s arm. He smiled over at her, and she felt a little lighter, somehow.

“Let’s have lunch here,” he said as he spotted a big, pink food truck parked near the picnic pavilions.

She looked from the truck to Arden. “Isn’t that how people get food poisoning? Or hepatitis?”

“Not these people,” he said, guiding them toward it. “This is the place I hunt down when I have money to splurge.”

“Splurge?” she asked. “On a food truck?”

Belle silently scolded herself as soon as she said it. She knew that he didn’t have money to throw around. A food truck that was a brush-off for her must have been an extravagance for him. The perspective was a bit uncomfortable.

“We’ll get burgers, find a spot to eat, and you can crack open one of those books that tagged along with you,” he said knowingly.

She couldn’t find an argument. It was the first day she’d taken just for herself in… Honestly, it had likely been years. She couldn’t even remember the last one.

“All right,” she agreed, determined to enjoy the lunch that he was so excited about.

The truck was just opening, and Arden let go of her arm so that he could hurry up to the window ahead of a few other people who had also seen it. When she reached him again, they were taking down his order.

“Two number threes, maneaters,” he told the woman at the window. “Two iced teas, and two pig tails.”

“Pig tails?” Belle whispered aside to Arden, giving him another doubtful look.

He grinned. “Curly fries.”

It took a little while, and they waited for their things just out of the way so that others could get their orders in. Arden took their food when it was ready, and he carried everything save one drink cup that he had to hand to her over to one of the small, round pavilions. She sat on the bench and shook her head as he perched himself on the table with his feet crossed next to her.

Lunch was _delicious._ Belle had to admit that much. She didn’t know what sort of magic the women in the food truck had, but it was entirely unexpected. As for Arden, he’d made more sounds of pleasure as he ate than he had during all of their sexual encounters put together. She was so amused that she couldn’t even begrudge him the noise.

“Have you ever just sat under a tree?” he asked as they were getting their bits of trash together.

Belle looked at him as if he’d asked her whether she had hauled off and _climbed_ one lately. “Not in a very long time, no.”

He smiled and took the paper left from her burger and fries. “Good day to rediscover it,” Arden said, and he went to drop them into the bin a few steps away. He waited for her to join him.

They walked deeper into the park, debating the merits of tree after tree until he accused her of a prejudice against oaks. Belle responded by pulling him toward the very next they saw - a great oak with a dappled shadow, off away from people and noise. She was relieved to find the grass dry and just fine for sitting a while.

Arden laughed when she brought a book out from her purse. “I knew you had one. You couldn’t leave the hotel without a story of some sort.”

She tilted her open purse so that he could see a couple more slim novels inside, and he laughed again. “I haven’t left the house without at least two on me since I was old enough to carry them.”

“I’m… not even going to pretend to be surprised,” he said, leaning to see which she held. “You read them over and over, don’t you?”

She skipped her thumbnail against the softened edge of the paperback of _Much Ado About Nothing_ she held in her hands. “There are some books that I go back to, yeah. I never was overly attached to a particular stuffed animal, but there were books I slept with under my pillow.”

He smiled, shifting around so that he faced her a bit better. “Again, unsurprised.”

Belle opened it to her marked place not terribly far from the end of the play, clearing her throat to begin reading aloud. She stopped and held the book out to him.

“Why don’t you read to me?” she asked.

The look he gave her was the very picture of a deer in headlights. “What?”

“Read to me?” she asked again, nodding encouragingly. But he shook his head. “Why not?”

“I’m…” He fidgeted, taking the book because she still held it out to him. “I’m just about as talented at reading as I am at _Scrabble,”_ he muttered, trying to get her to take her book back.

“That doesn’t matter. I’d like to hear.”

“It’s Shakespeare. It’s more difficult already.”

“You have a good vocabulary,” she pointed out. 

He shrugged, one side of his mouth pulling upward with his embarrassed grimace. “Doesn’t mean I can read well. Like I said, it’s all by ear.”

“I’m not going to judge your reading, Arden,” she said. She rested her hand on his knee. “I’d very much like to hear you read to me.”

He opened the book and bowed his head over it, his hair falling forward to hide his face as he ran a finger beneath the first line on the page. It took him a few minutes to begin. His reading was halting and slow, but once he got started, he went on more or less steadily.

Belle listened to his accent, though it was broken by sounding out words now and then. After he made his way through a page, she scooted to one side enough that she could lie down, pillowing her head on his thigh. It derailed him a little, and he gave her a curious smile before searching for his place again. She got to know the pause he made before asking about a word. Knowing the play by heart, she began supplying them without Arden having to turn the book around. 

_“I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes…”_ Arden paused to consider the line. He looked down at her with a broad smirk. “I like that one.”

“You get the innuendo?” She grinned up at him, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve been waiting for you to get there.”

He took his finger from the page and touched the tip of her nose. “I get it.”

The play was intriguing, what little he read of it. But he couldn’t imagine being wanted the way that Beatrice and Benedick wanted and loved one another. It was the most difficult part of having a taste for romantic stories, knowing that he could never have anything like the people in them had.

He didn’t deserve to be wanted - to be _truly_ wanted, not just for what he could do, but all of him. Most of the time, he managed to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that he’d gotten over it. That he didn’t need to be cared about. Most days he could live on autopilot and pretend that he didn’t feel it. 

These days, though, he wasn’t living at nighttime. She’d brought him out into the sun, for better or worse. He couldn’t push away the feeling of raw longing that he got when he saw people being happy together as something that he didn’t care if he never had. When Belle looked at him, all blue eyes and bright smiles, he wondered what it would be like to really have her, for her to be happy with him, to be wanted in her life. Something hurt through the middle of him. 

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

She took him to the automotive museum in the late afternoon, remembering his talk of cars on the night she met him and thinking that he might enjoy it. Arden had been quiet but interested, and he had seemed happy to offer facts and explanations when she asked about the displays that drew him in. 

“Are you ready to go back to the hotel?” Belle said when they returned to the car.

He looked to her, then looked past her, out the darkened car window. She turned to follow his eyeline. 

“Is there somewhere else you want to go?” she asked.

There was a flicker of reluctance between Arden’s eyebrows. “Let’s just go back to the hotel, yeah. It’s almost time for dinner. And I’ve been told I’m pretty good with a back massage - I wanted to show you.”

She reached for his hand. “Where do you want to go?”

“Isn’t there an observatory somewhere nearby?” he said after a moment.

Belle looked toward the driver’s seat. “Graham?”

“Griffith Observatory is around half an hour north of us,” Graham supplied as he put the car in gear.

She smiled at Arden and brought his hand over onto her lap, curling both of her own into it.

Belle caught an unmistakable look of wonder on Arden’s face as they walked into the observatory. An employee greeted them, letting them know that the monthly star party was in progress and that they were welcome to join. He looked to her as though he needed permission.

“That sounds like a good idea,” she said, slipping her hand around his arm.

They followed the employee’s directions and walked through, getting in line for a guided telescope observation. The cool air had her tucking herself close to his side while they waited their turn. Looking at the sky with Arden was the most exciting thing she’d done in ages, and she wished she’d been the one to think of the observatory for him. It seemed an obvious choice, now. He clearly had a better time there than around the cars, and she was disappointed in herself for taking so long to realize why.

With the lights off in the car on the way to the hotel, she leaned her shoulder into his. “That was lovely,” she said. “The entire day, but particularly the end, there.”

“It was,” he agreed, slipping his arm around her.

She soaked up the warmth of him, the feeling of him being close.

“I remember my mum talking about wanting a nice telescope,” he told her in the dark. “She loved the stars. Wish I’d listened more closely to her talk about them.”

Belle rested her head on his shoulder. She didn’t know how to respond. She had similar regrets of her own, and there was nothing anyone could say to take the sharp edges off of them. 

She tilted her face up to kiss his cheek. “You listened enough to know that she loved them.”

Belle felt his arm tighten around her, his fingers pressing into her side through her cardigan. It was enough of an answer.

Arden was a bit proud of her - she’d taken a single call over the course of the entire day, and that one only to tell her lawyer to stop calling her unless there was an emergency. He’d been able to hear the woman on the other end of the phone yelling as Belle hung up on her.

They had takeout for dinner - his suggestion again - before heading to the hotel. He caught her yawning in the car on the way, and he began once more tempting her with a back massage. She’d agreed, deciding on a shower first and his hands on her afterward.

By the time they got up to the suite, Belle only wanted to change into her pajamas and get into bed. As thoroughly as she’d enjoyed their day together, it turned out that long hours at the office were quite a bit different than spending a day galavanting around the city. She convinced Arden to go and take the bath he’d wanted while she changed. The last thing she remembered being aware of was water running into the tub and Arden humming something to himself in the other room.

He dried his hair so that he didn’t get her pillows wet and sorted out a bottle of rose scented body oil from the containers arranged near the bathtub. She stayed up so late so often, he’d thought it was a given that she’d be awake when he went back into the bedroom. Belle looked fast asleep, though, curled up in the middle of the bed in her pajama top, the bottoms draped and forgotten across the lounge. He couldn’t begrudge her the sleep, little as she apparently got.

Arden climbed carefully onto the bed and sat next to her, folding his legs. He felt as if she grew more beautiful by the day. Just looking at her was enough to make something in his chest feel tighter, and it was as compelling as it was unsettling. He hadn’t spent so much time with anyone other than Jeff since Milah had been around, and he wondered if it was simply the lack of closeness that he felt, or something else. 

He leaned down, dropping a light kiss on her cheek so that he didn’t wake her. When she didn’t stir, he stayed near. It took him a few very long minutes to build up the courage to break his own rule.

Kissing was different. Kissing meant something. Just about anybody could fuck, if they’d a mind to. But a kiss… a kiss was special.

Arden leaned closer, until he could brush his lips over hers.

Belle opened her eyes, drawing a breath and looking up at him curiously. The softness in his eyes turned to caution. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and she wasn’t sure whether he was making an apology for waking her or for the kiss, but she wanted one for neither.

Reaching up, she curled her hand around the side of his neck, stroking her thumb across the skin just beneath his ear to let him know that it was all right. When the fearful tension fled under her touch, she pulled lightly at him, hoping to bring him back down for another. After a stutter of breath, he let her.

He gave another graze of his mouth against hers before holding contact for a longer moment. Belle parted her lips, encouraging him to deepen the kiss, and it sent a warm thrill through her when at last he did. Arden caught her lower lip between his, and she felt him suck gently at it. The sensation made her head spin. She had to force herself to keep her hand resting at his neck rather than grab hold of his hair the way she felt an urge to. She was well aware he was doing something that he didn’t allow himself, and the last thing she wanted to do was scare him away from her. 

His tongue flickered over the center of her lip, and he hesitated before breaking the kiss. He didn’t move, and for a second, she was disappointed that he was done. Eyes still closed, she heard him swallow and then take a breath, and his lips were on hers again, this time open and asking for more.

When the tip of her tongue stroked along the roof of his mouth, he felt it right down through his belly. He wasn’t in the least surprised to find himself getting hard, but he was startled at how good it felt. He could manage to get going for anyone, but he _wanted_ her. Arden hadn’t actually wanted to be with someone in that way in longer than he felt safe remembering, but this - wanting someone, wanting someone for himself, it made him feel lost all over again.

She curled her tongue so that it glided against the underside of his, and before he could pursue, she pulled back. It took him a few pounding heartbeats to get his head on halfway straight.

“Do you want- would you-” He shook his head, darting his tongue out to lick his lips and tasting her there again. How had it been so easy to ask every time it didn’t matter?

Smiling, Belle moved her hand from his neck to touch his cheek. “I want to.”

He shifted onto his knees so that he could reach the nightstand and leaned to get a condom from the drawer. The packet fumbled out of his fingers as he started to sit back again, falling to the floor, and had to grab another. With suddenly unsteady fingers, it took him two tries to get the foil torn open.

She placed her hands over his and slipped the packet from his fingers, and he was thankful when she took that measure of control. He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back as she sorted out the condom. She pulled open the tie on his pajama bottoms and he worked them down until his cock popped out over the waistband. With a smile visible on either side of her lower lip where she held it between her teeth, she rolled the condom _so_ slowly on, drawing a whimper from him.

Belle wiggled her panties past her hips, leaning one way and then the other to work them out from under her, and kicked them off her feet. She pulled him to her with hands holding onto the front of his shirt. Laying back, she rolled him on top of her before letting go to push his pajama pants down his thighs, needing him inside her before she could get either of them further undressed. She slid a hand between them to line him up. The sound Arden made was something between a grunt and a cry when he pushed inside, and she tightened her legs around him to pull him deeper.

Arden did most of the work, hitching his hips frantically into her. She did her best to help, wrapping her arms around him and raising her hips to meet him, though there really wasn’t much of a rhythm to be found. 

His face was buried in the side of her neck and she could hear and feel him gasping against her skin. There was little romance to it, but she could feel the need and desperation and _emotion_ in him. The pretense and playacting that were second nature for Arden weren’t present in the least. Every grasp at her and thrust into her was utterly honest, and something about it was incredibly arousing.

She slid one hand down his back, past the small of it and stroking over one cheek of his ass before she tightened her hand just beneath. There was an interesting gratification in the tightening of the muscle at the back of his thigh and feeling the jar of his non-rhythm.

Arden felt Belle’s fingernails score down the line of his backbone as her hand made its way down, and the sharpness of them brought a groan from him that he couldn’t hold back. For once, sex wasn’t about the techniques he’d learned to get a customer off faster or harder. It wasn’t about paying rent or being able to buy food. It was her, and it was him, and the feeling of it wrapped around him so closely he could hardly think.

“Come on, sweetheart,” she said, and she gasped as he kissed her neck in response to her endearment. “Oh, God… There, that’s right, it’s all right, take what you need…”

Her murmured words of encouragement in his ear drove him closer, and there was no thinking it away when he came. Arden’s orgasm flooded him all at once. His hands beneath her clutched at her shirt, holding onto fistfuls of it as his hips bucked into her twice more before he went tense and still, and he couldn’t remember an orgasm _ever_ having felt so good.

Belle turned her face toward him, smiling into his hair as he finished. She kept her hips rocking beneath him, working herself toward her own climax. She was close, and it didn’t take much. The feeling of his weight on her, his hands clinging to her, his panted breath on her skin finished her off.

“Arden…” she groaned before she came, and she felt him nuzzle into her neck just as the first wave shuddered through her.

She brought her hands up again, petting his hair and neck as they both came back down, letting him lie between her legs for as long as he needed. Eventually, he pushed up onto his forearms and looked at her. There was something uncertain in his expression, and she smiled up at him, cradling her palms against the line of his jaw.

“It’s all right,” she whispered to him. 

Something had changed, and she couldn’t have pointed out what it was, but she could feel the shift. It was an electric feeling, unsettling and wonderful, and she suddenly worried that she couldn’t hold onto it.

Arden moved carefully off, feeling guilty for remaining on top of her. He laid next to her and she turned onto her side to face him. Belle seemed wide awake now, watching him, and he was the sleepy one. She’d pressed herself close and he was warm and comfortable when it occurred to him that he needed to remove the condom before they went to sleep. With a sigh, he started to pull away.

“Wait,” Belle said, reaching for his hand.

“I need to clean up,” he told her. “Can’t keep a condom on all night.”

She sat up, motioning him onto his back. He gave her a confused look before understanding what she meant to do. Belle took the condom off him and tied it as she’d seen him do, and she leaned across him to drop it into the wastebasket next to the bed.

“Can the rest wait?” she asked as she sat back.

“Yeah,” he said with a nod. “The rest can wait.”

He pulled the blanket up, turning onto his stomach, and she snuggled in close again.

She only looked at him for a while longer before asking quietly, “When is the last time you kissed someone?”

Arden was at a loss for a moment. Not because he didn’t know, but because he remembered precisely. 

“My son’s mother,” he said under his breath.

The kiss had been long before she disappeared. Before the first time he sold himself. It was on the night that Bae laughed for the first time - he could remember it clear as day. She had kissed him before they went to sleep. He’d been on neither the giving nor receiving end of a kiss since. 

Running the back of her fingers along his jaw, Belle whispered, “Such a long time…”

She leaned in to kiss him again, moving slowly, giving him the chance to refuse her if he’d changed his mind. Arden accepted her kiss and drew a deep breath, holding it until she broke the kiss, herself. When she didn’t pull away, he leaned for another, brief and soft.

Belle put her arm around him, running her hand across his back. It didn’t take her long to realize that she could feel the small scars there under her fingertips. Most were barely there, but a few looked to have been deep, whatever made them. His back muscles flinched a little as she touched them.

“What happened here?” she asked.

Arden didn’t answer right away, clenching his eyes shut. “Buckle end of a belt,” he finally murmured.

He was usually pretty good at hiding them. He kept his back turned away from customers when his clothes were off, stayed out of too much light when they were behind him. They’d probably been seen before, but no one had ever cared enough to remark on them.

She rested her hand flat on his back, creating a spreading circle of warmth. “A customer?”

“No,” he told her. “Before customers.”

Belle’s heart sank. “Oh.”

Her father hadn’t been a very good one, but at least there’d never been anything like that. She rubbed her hand across Arden’s back again. Raising up on the arm under her, she leaned to brush her lips over one of the more painful looking gouges. He turned his head, burying his face in the pillow until she stopped and laid down again. She ran her hand down, touching the dimples at the base of his spine before stroking her fingers back up to rest between his shoulderblades.

Arden basked in the way she touched him. There was no demand to it, no sense of ownership or advantage. It simply felt good, and he allowed himself the pleasure of it. 

He couldn’t help the relief that she stopped asking questions. He had the feeling he’d have answered anything she wanted to know just now, but he had too much running through his head.

Belle’s hand stilled. He watched as her eyes drifted shut. She lay curled so close that her legs were crossed up with his, and he wasn’t sure whose warmth was whose.

Her breathing evened out, and he was certain that she’d gone to sleep. He forced his own eyes open each time they tried to droop closed. He didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want to risk waking in the morning to discover that none of this had really happened. When Arden knew that he couldn’t resist sleep any longer, he tilted his head forward until it touched hers on the pillow. 

He let his eyes fall closed and took a deep, quiet breath, and when he let it go again, he breathed words out on it. She wouldn’t hear, but he needed to say them or he felt as if they would suffocate him.

“I love you.”

Belle opened her eyes. She lay there, looking at Arden, his face and words so close that she couldn’t focus. She waited for herself to say it in return.


	17. Wouldn't Know Love If It Hit You

Her laptop sat open on the table, e-mail brought up but otherwise untouched. There were a number of texts and voicemails waiting on her phone. She’d ended up turning it over so that she didn’t have an accusing number of notifications staring up at her. She should have been working her way through responding to everything in need of her attention, but she couldn’t make herself concentrate on any of it.

Belle nibbled from a bowl of dry cereal. It was sugary and completely devoid of nutrients, but it came along with breakfast every morning now because she’d seen how Arden liked it. She had slipped out of bed at the first hint of dawn to take her time showering and getting ready for work. This wasn’t a morning she felt like rushing.

She couldn’t get it out of her head, everything that had happened the night before. What Arden had done. What she had done. What he’d _said._ It played itself over and over in her thoughts - the sex they had, his declaration afterward. She tried to push it away, but it wouldn’t be ignored. And she didn’t know what to do about it. What she did know was that she couldn’t bear the idea of leaving Los Angeles and never seeing him again. 

Arden went quietly into the suite’s main room, walking through to the dining area where Belle sat. He could see her laptop and phone, which usually signaled that she was up to her ears in business. Her eyes were on the cereal bowl at the opposite side of her, though. She looked as if she’d stuck a fork in a toaster, not like she was working. 

He leaned his backside against the edge of the table and reached for one of the thick, homemade Belgian waffles he’d discovered a taste for. “Penny for your thoughts?” he hazarded between bites.

Belle looked up to find Arden looking back at her, and there was an awkward moment before she could manage to cover for her daze. She shook her head and remembered to smile.

“Tonight will be our last night together,” she said, then teased, “You’ll finally be rid of me.”

“Mm, because you’ve been such a terror.” He grinned, tearing a bit off the corner of his waffle and tossing it at her.

She caught the piece and placed it at the edge of her bowl. “The buyout will go through today,” she said, holding back a sigh. “Then it’s back to New York for me.”

Arden looked down, poking another torn bite into his mouth. He’d known that she would go eventually, and it wasn’t as if her leaving and their arrangement ending were a surprise. Time had always been short, but he’d really been aware of it the last couple of days. What was a surprise was how he _felt_ about it ending.

Belle watched him work his way through the waffle. “I’d… like to see you again. I was thinking that I might come back out in time for Christmas,” she told him, her smile softening. “If you’d like that?”

He smiled over at her, and his heart thumped the way it had at the opera. “Yeah. I would.”

“I can arrange for you to stay right here. And for you to have a car at your disposal,” she offered. 

There was an odd and silent few seconds before he asked, “What?”

“If you don’t want a driver, I could set you up with a Bugatti of your own. Or whatever you’d like to drive. Something in a much better color,” she said, tempting him. “You’d have a running tab at any shop you want. And an expense account.”

His smile flickered and he laughed. It wasn’t the sweet laughter she’d become accustomed to over the last few days. It was a laugh that was bitter and pained, and her heart sank.

Arden just looked at her in disbelief. Where she ended up with that was miles from where he thought she was going, and _he should have known better._ He was ridiculous. Of course she wouldn’t want anything like what he’d imagined. Not with him. She had far, far better prospects. Men with breeding, with money. Men that hadn’t been used by more people than they could count. It stung, and the hurt came out.

“You think that’s what I want? Clothes? Cars?” he asked, his voice low and as even as he could make it. “What were you thinking you’d do, leave a stack of hundreds on the dresser when you had business nearby?”

Belle frowned up at him. “What is it that you want, then?”

He shook his head. If he had to spell it out… There was no use if she didn’t want it, too.

“Nothing,” he said under his breath. “Nothing at all.”

_Nothing but her._

“Arden?” She reached over, laying a hand above his knee. “You don’t understand. I’m not good at this. The everyday, the relationship kind of thing. It never-”

“Yeah, well, being someone’s mistress isn’t exactly the ideal, is it?” he replied sourly.

“It wouldn’t be that way.”

“How else am I supposed to take it?’

“It would get you off the street,” she pointed out too quickly.

“So I wouldn’t be _street trash_ anymore, right?” He shook his head again. Did she really not understand? “Paying a whore in the penthouse instead of on ground level is still paying a whore.”

“Arden!” she snapped, her tone more scolding than she really meant it to be.

He tossed what was left of his waffle onto the plate next to him and got up, taking himself into the living room and out of her sight. He’d lost his appetite anyway. Arden went out onto the balcony, hugging the wall between the two sets of doors, leaning heavily against it.

Belle closed her laptop and grabbed her phone before she followed him out. She’d hurt him again, and she wasn’t sure how. Surely setting him up with a life in the hotel was better than wherever he’d been living before.

“If you don’t want what I suggested, what is it that you want?” she asked, stepping into the balcony doorway. “What do you want to happen?”

“I don’t know,” he lied. He wrapped his arms around himself and shifted his weight onto his weaker ankle, making it twinge, trying to take some of the ache out of his chest.

Her phone vibrated. He could hear it buzz in her hand. Belle frowned, but he knew that she had to answer it. The day of the buyout, she’d said. She turned it where she could see the screen and made an irritated sound, turning away from him to step back into the room.

“What?” Belle snapped. Her lawyer couldn’t have called at a worse time if she’d tried.

“Beverly Lucas just called,” Zelena told her, sounding all too gleeful. “She wants to meet with you. This morning. _Right now.”_

She pressed her fingertips hard between her eyebrows. “Why?”

“Hell if I know,” her lawyer said. “She wouldn’t tell me, but it sounds urgent. I’m betting she’s finally accepted that her neck is on the block. Belle, dearest, all you have to do now is swing the sword. We could take legal ownership of Granny Lucas’ Gourmet Foods by next week.”

An entire day of talks and contracts and work. That wasn’t how she wanted to spend her last day with Arden - a day which was off to a spectacular start.

”No. If she’s ready, I want to get it squared away as early as possible,” Belle said, pulling her case from under the desk. “I’m coming in right now. Have everything ready to sign in the event it works out.”

She hung up without waiting for Zelena to inevitably gripe about something. Dropping her phone into her purse, she grabbed her coat from the chair and went back out on the balcony, back out to Arden.

“I have to go into the office for a while,” she told him.

He gave her a short, “I heard.”

“I need you to understand,” she asked of him as she shrugged her coat on. “What I’m offering, it’s all I’m capable of giving just now.”

“I understand,” Arden said quietly. He turned to her and reached up, buttoning her fitted pea coat so that he didn’t have to meet her eyes. “It’s a wonderful offer for something like me, being a kept boy.”

She lifted her hands, curling them around his. It hurt to pull them away from her, but he did it, turning again to walk through the other door, heading for the bedroom.

“Go to work,” he said. “When you get back, we can go for dinner. Or whatever you decide. You know you have a sure thing, if you want it. For another twenty-four hours or so, at least.”

“I never once treated you like a thing,” Belle called after him. He didn’t turn back to her. She sighed, but she took her purse and briefcase from her desk, stopping for her laptop before she left.

The door closed behind her and the ache behind Arden’s breastbone spread. He murmured to himself, “What do you think you just did?”

She was done with him. Of course she was. The small part of him that had reached out recoiled, laughing at him for hoping.

Arden attempted to distract himself by taking one last swim in the enormous bathtub, using another of the peachy-orange bath bombs with no intention at all of showering it off after. All he could think of was her. Using her shampoo, he would smell her and smell _like_ her, he would have the clothing she’d bought for him to wear, her money would pay his rent and buy his food for months. There wasn’t a chance of him ever forgetting her. How different was all of that from accepting her offer to set him up right there in the suite he’d been staying in with her for the last week? 

If he accepted, he would be safe. He would have a safe place for his son, if Miss Fox could find him. And he would remain a hooker, albeit a glorified one. 

He pulled in a breath and slid down under the water. With the ten grand she owed him, maybe he and Jeff could find a better place. If they were careful, it could get them off the street entirely. And the new clothes meant that he could go on _good_ job interviews. The ‘what if’s piled up in his head until he had to come up for air.

He was getting dressed, pulling a sweater over his head when the phone on the nightstand rang. Arden sat down on the bed and picked it up.

“Belle?” he answered hopefully.

“Ms. Blanchard,” the voice on the other end of the line corrected. “Mr. Gold, you have a visitor here at the front desk. The only name he volunteers is ‘Jefferson,’ if that means anything to you.”

“Just give me the phone,” he heard from somewhere aside, and the manager made an indignant sound. There was a shuffle as the receiver changed hands. “Arden, come down and claim me, would you? They won’t let me come up, and if you leave me here, they’re gonna toss me in the lost and found. They seem a little high strung.”

Arden exhaled something like a chuckle. “I’ll be right down.”

He put his shoes on and made sure he had his room key. Talking to Jeff would be a good diversion, he thought as he decided to take him out to the fountain. He wouldn’t dare bring Jeff up to the suite. It was nice out there, anyway.

Jeff never looked great when he was using, but a chill crept down Arden’s back when he rounded the front desk and saw his friend. Jefferson’s eyes were feverish and shadowed. He was frighteningly pale, and Arden could see the exhaustion all over him.

“This is the friend I left the envelope for,” Arden told Ms. Blanchard when he walked up to the desk. “May I have that back?”

It took her a minute to find it, but she set it on the desk, maintaining a thoroughly disapproving look toward Jeff the full time. “Will there be anything else?” she asked with an air that communicated her request that his roommate be removed from her lobby as soon as possible.

Arden extended a “Thank you,” and wrapped a hand around Jeff’s forearm to pull him along.

“You were supposed to come by and get the rent money,” he pointed out as they walked through the lobby and out into the garden.

Jeff groaned. “I know, I know. I never could get down this way.”

“I called you to come and pick up rent money from the desk Tuesday morning.” Arden reached for Jeff’s jacket when he turned the wrong way, giving him a tug in the other direction. “That’s been almost a week.”

“I was sort of keeping out of Cora’s line of fire,” Jeff said, cringing.

Arden gave him a sharp sidelong look. “If you’d come fetched the money, you wouldn’t have had to.”

“You know, if Cora could see you like this, she’d cream her-”

“No! Don’t finish that!” Arden gave him a horrified glare.

Jeff shrugged. “I have the money now, anyway. Thanks.”

“You don’t have it yet.” Arden sat on the fountain’s wide ledge. He patted the envelope against his thigh. “We haven’t been evicted have we? And you just haven’t told me?”

“Nah. The landlord has pneumonia,” Jeff said, pulling a face and sitting down. “Got put in the hospital the day after you drove off with Miss Moneybags. We’re good.”

Arden nodded, relieved. At least he had somewhere to go ‘home’ to in the morning.

“Oh, _hey,”_ Jeff began, swatting his roommate’s arm. “Did you hear? They caught the guy that gave me my second smile.”

“No!” Arden turned to face him. “I didn’t figure anybody cared enough to stay on top of it.”

“They didn’t. Not when it was just us streetwalkers.” Jeff gave him what could only be called an angry grin. “Turned out the guy went after some fat cat’s daughter. Her car broke down in our neck of the woods when she was on the way back from a party and he mistook her for one of us.”

Arden frowned. “Did he-”?

“She’ll live. Lit a fire under the cops, though. Turned out they found him real easy. Couldn’t find the guy for over a year when he was just killing us, but go after the socialites and they get him in two days.” A wry slit of a smile stretched itself across Jeff’s mouth. He touched the scar at his neck, taking a long look out over the sparkling blue water in the fountain.

Blowing out a tense breath, Jeff looked back to Arden. “You look nice. Damn, you even smell nice.”

Arden laughed and tucked his head against his shoulder as Jeff leaned to sniff him. “It’s called a bath.”

“A bath! Getting too fancy for the Boulevard,” Jeff said, ribbing him.

“It’s easy to look and smell nice when somebody’s footing the bill.” Arden looked down at his fidgeting fingers, and he tucked his hand between his thigh and the fountain ledge.

Jeff watched his roommate for a minute. He wasn’t stupid. He got it. “When does she leave?”

“Day after tomorrow. I’ll be home in the morning,” Arden murmured. “Maybe sooner.”

“Do you get to keep the clothes?” Jeff asked.

“She says it’s all mine.” Arden dropped his hand to touch his fingertips to the surface of the water. “She asked about seeing me again, made some offers, but…” He shook his head.

“Oh. Yeah. Of course not. A woman like that? You wouldn’t wanna have her as a regular.” Jeff snorted, leaning to look at Arden’s face. “Have you lost your mind?”

Arden frowned down at his wavering reflection in the water.

Jeff looked more closely, narrowing his eyes. “…No. You didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“You _did._ Aw, Arden. Of all the fuckups.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Jesus, Arden. You fell for her? In _a week?”_

He didn’t tell Jeff that it didn’t take a full week. Arden licked his lips nervously, remembering the night before.

 _“And you kissed her,”_ Jeff squawked, as though the idea of it were appalling.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You kissed her! You didn’t listen to anything I tried to teach you?”

“Jeff, it doesn’t mat-”

“What do you think’s gonna happen? You’ll move in with her? Build a white picket fence, get a dog and have a couple of kids? Join the PTA?” Jeff went on, somewhere between angry and hysterical.

 _“It doesn’t matter!”_ Arden said more loudly, attracting the attention of a couple of other people around the garden. He cleared his throat and spoke more quietly again when they stopped staring. “She doesn’t love me. She doesn’t care. So, you see, it doesn’t matter.” 

Jeff’s anger slowly faded into a frown. “How do you know?”

“I know.”

“How?”

“The offer she made.” Arden ran his hands back through his hair when the wind caught it, doing his best not to sulk. “She wanted to put me up in the hotel here, set up an expense account. Give the hooker a change of scenery, keep it a hooker.”

“That’s…” Jeff stared at him, his jaw slack. “That’s not something anybody does for a person they don’t care about.”

Arden looked down into the water again. He ran his hand through it to break up his reflection. “Wanting to keep your easy lay convenient isn’t the same as love.”

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Zelena dropped the contract in front of Beverly Lucas with the sharp slap of a sheaf of papers. She gave the older woman a smug sneer and sat down in the chair at the end of the conference table. 

“You wanted to speak with Ms. French,” she said with a flick of her hand. “Please, do.”

“My granddaughter and I have reconsidered your offer,” Mrs. Lucas said evenly, turning in the swiveling chair to address Belle, who paced restlessly along the length of the room. “I have one condition. I’m not concerned about myself - I have more than enough put by to live out my life comfortably, and for Ruby after me. My concern is for my employees.”

“Absolutely,” the lawyer drawled, giving her a smile that was nothing if not insincere. “Your employees will be taken care of, rest assured. Now, if that’s all, we can turn our attention to the contract.”

“Zelena, stop,” Belle said, and she finished pacing near Beverly’s seat. “I think I would like to speak privately with Mrs. Lucas. If you could give us the room.”

Zelena gaped at her, and it took her an unusual beat to recover her lawyer senses. She rolled her chair back from the table. “Ladies, gentlemen, if you would please follow me. I believe there are refreshments in the lounge.”

She gave Belle a hard, narrow-eyed look before following the others out.

“Granny?” Ruby asked quietly.

Beverly gave her granddaughter a nod and a pat on the arm. “It’s all right. Go on.”

Belle sighed, looking around the conference room. “Would you like some coffee?”

“I would _like_ to know what this is about,” Beverly told her.

“Mrs. Lucas,” Belle began. “My interests in Granny Lucas’ Gourmet Foods have changed.”

Beverly frowned up at her. “So, what is it that you want now? Angling for my recipes, too?”

“No, ma’am.” Belle sat down in the chair next to the older woman, swiveling it to face her. “I no longer want to buy your company to disassemble it and sell it off. And I don’t want anyone else to be able to do so, either. But your company is extremely vulnerable. Even if I step back, there will be someone to swoop in after me.” 

“Apparently there’s nothing I can do about that. You’ve proven as much,” Beverly said, the suspicion in her soft features turning into curiosity. 

Belle shook her head, lacing her fingers together to rest on her knees. “I don’t- I’ve never done anything like this before. This is unfamiliar territory for me, so I’ll understand if you’re reluctant, but… I want to help you.”

The older woman blinked at her change of heart. Belle understood the skepticism. Over a year of her pursuit of a buyout, and suddenly this.

“Why?” Beverly asked.

“I believe we can breathe life back into your company,” Belle told her.

Beverly made a doubtful sound. “The situation we were depending on to help us recover, it fell through.”

“Not necessarily. I might have had a hand in that,” Belle admitted. “I can fix it. And if you’re willing to work together, I can do far more than just allow a bank to complete your loans.

“There’d be a great deal to discuss before I could accept such a partnership,” Beverly warned her. “And a good many conditions would need to be met.”

“I know. I wouldn’t want to change anything about how you manufacture your product lines,” Belle promised. “Only the financial side. My goal is to get you solidly on your feet again, so that you can go back to business as it was before.”

“I believe we have an excellent starting point there,” Beverly said, smiling and reaching over to pat her hands.

Belle returned her smile. Mrs. Lucas wouldn’t lose the company she had built from scratch, and her granddaughter wouldn’t lose her legacy. Maybe she could salvage _something_ today.

She reached across the table for someone’s legal pad and folded over the used sheet, beginning to write things down. Over the course of an hour - during which Belle saw her lawyer lurk more than once past the conference room windows - she filled a dozen pages with Mrs. Lucas’ ideas as well as her own. They agreed rather quickly on the beginnings of a partnership. She signed the bottom of each page, then had Mrs. Lucas add her own signature alongside.

“That’ll make a good start. We can leave the particulars to the others, I believe.” Belle carefully separated the pages from the rest of the pad and handed them to Mrs. Lucas. “Anything else you decide on or wish to discuss, I’ll have a look over it later.”

She sat forward, moving to rise. Beverly stood with her and placed a hand on her arm, stopping her.

“Ms. French, I don’t intend what I’m about to say to be condescending. I mean it honestly.” Beverly reached to take Belle’s hands in her own. “I’m proud of you.”

Belle was at an utter loss for words for a few moments. She took a slightly shaky breath before she could say, “Thank you.”

She walked away from Mrs. Lucas and opened the door onto a small herd of businesspeople and lawyers standing by, having apparently grown too impatient for the lounge. A seething Zelena stood at their center. 

“I believe the meeting can reconvene now,” Belle said, stepping out of the room and gesturing the group inside once again.

“What, precisely, was that about?” Zelena hissed as she stepped back in.

Belle glanced past her lawyer to Mrs. Lucas, smiling. She felt as though a weight had been removed from her shoulders.

“My new client will fill you in. The room is yours,” she told Zelena, and she left, shutting the door behind her.

As she walked past the conference room windows to retrieve her things from the office she’d been provided while visiting, she saw Zelena go directly to the contracts that still lay untouched where they’d been dropped on the table. The lawyer flipped through them, at first somewhat calmly. Then she picked them up and practically ripped the pages off the staples, searching.

“These haven’t been signed. Why the hell haven’t these been signed?” Zelena yelled loudly enough to be heard across the office floor. “Belle! What the fuck have you done?”

Belle’s smile grew. She slipped her laptop back into her case, grabbed her purse and coat, and headed right back out. As she walked past again, she saw the conference room in a bit of a fizz. Walsh came hurrying out, though he didn’t seem to have any destination except _away._

Through the door he left standing open, she heard Mrs. Lucas tap the pages filled with ideas they’d put together on the table and announce, “As it turns out, Ms. French and I are going to make our cakes and sell them, too.”

By the time she got downstairs, Graham waited for her with the car door open. She handed her attaché case to him and shook her head.

“Actually, I think I need to take a walk,” she told him. “I’ll be back in a while.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, setting her case on the seat inside and closing the door. “I’ll be waiting right here, then.”

Belle walked from the parking lot, crossing the street and heading down the opposite sidewalk. She remembered just where the park that she and Arden had gone to was. It wasn’t ideal, getting there on foot, but it wasn’t that far. There was a certain tree that she needed to sit beneath for a while.


	18. Pretend My Heart's Still Beating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If you've seen the movie, you know what happens in this chapter. If not... warning: sexual assault tw.)

Arden felt guilt nagging at his insides as he packed away the clothes that Belle had bought for him. He didn’t know how much she’d spent on everything, but it was all too much. He could mostly rationalize the ten thousand he was asking, and if she decided to dock him part of it for leaving a few hours early, that was only fair. Keeping thousands of dollars worth of clothing hadn’t been a part of their deal, though. He couldn’t deny that he wanted them, but packing up a wardrobe full of things that didn’t feel like his made him all the more aware of everything over the course of the past week that he _wasn’t_ allowed to keep.

He was reaching to zip up the front of the last garment bag when the suite doorbell rang. Belle wouldn’t ring, and the elevator attendant wouldn’t allow Jeff up without calling. It had to be someone with the hotel staff. He took the bag with him, laying it over the back of the chair near the entryway before going to the door.

“Well, well, well. Look at you,” Belle’s lawyer said. “Still here?”

There was a glint in her eyes that made his stomach feel as if it dropped straight through the floor. Before he could ask what she wanted, she pushed her way in.

“Where is she?” Zelena demanded.

“Belle?” He looked at the door that he still held open and back to the barger-in. “She isn’t here. She’s at work.”

“Afraid not. She left early,” Zelena snarled through a cold smile.

“If she’s not with you, I don’t know where she is,” Arden said as he closed the door.

The lawyer made a beeline for the wet bar near the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of something deep amber in color and expensive looking, downing half of it before turning around again.

“No, she isn’t _with_ me. If she were _with_ me, she wouldn’t have screwed me out of my percentage of a two billion dollar buyout this morning.” Zelena took another swig from the glass, then gestured at him with it. “Do you know what I think? I think Belle is _with_ you. That’s what I think.”

Arden shook his head, trying to understand what she meant about Belle and the buyout on top of his fluster surrounding her intrusion. “She- she’s not-”

“I think you’re a little worm in her ear. I think you’ve wriggled your way in and you’ll slither out with your pockets full,” Zelena accused. “Hell, if you hadn’t fucked with _my_ money, I might even find your hustle admirable.”

He frowned. “I’m not a hustler. I don’t steal.”

“What, you think you’re a whore with a heart of gold? You don’t fit the mold.” She snorted, tipping the last gulp of liquor into her mouth. Taking the bottle with her, she parked herself on one of the spindly barstools. “Y’know, I believe I’ll just wait here with you. Belle can’t avoid me forever. And we both know she’ll be coming back for a poke before she leaves town.”

“She should be home any minute,” Arden said. He walked away, farther into the living room, needing distance from her but worrying what she might do if he left her there alone. Sitting sideways on the sofa to keep her in his peripheral vision, he picked up the book he’d been reading.

Zelena slid down from the stool, and he heard her footsteps as she walked toward him.

“This is _not_ your home,” she said, her voice tight and cruel. “This is a hotel room. I’m sure you’ve had a great deal of experience with those. Or are you the kind that prefers dark alleys?”

Arden’s stomach turned. He swallowed over a wave of anxious nausea. Zelena sat down next to him, far too close, and he shifted away.

“Whatever it is you do to her, it must be some fucking talent.” She laughed at her own remark and put her glass down on the coffee table with a loud _clink_ of glass on glass. “Some talent, to brainwash her the way you have. What sort of cock is it you’re packing to do what you’ve done to her?”

He had heard far worse from customers; why it bothered him so much now, he couldn’t pin down. The hand not holding Belle’s book clenched so tightly that his nails bit into his palms, and he tried every trick he knew to force himself to calm down.

She scooted closer to him again, curling her hand over his thigh. “Maybe if you fuck _me,_ use that mouth of yours on _me,_ I won’t care about losing all that money either, huh?” Zelena slid her hand right up to his groin.

He’d suddenly had enough of everything about her, and it occurred to him that he didn’t have to take it. He didn’t have to accept her hands on him, he didn’t have to accept the way she spoke to him, and she didn’t have a right to anything about him.

Arden opened his hand to push hers away from his leg, but she’d already moved it while at the same time leaning closer. Before he knew what was happening, she had him pushed back and she was climbing over him, her knees outside of his thighs and her feet hooked over the inside, her hands at his throat. Arden grabbed them to wrench them away. She only squeezed harder. Her fingernails broke his skin as one hand tightened to allow the other to twist away from the desperate scrabbling of his fingers. He could smell alcohol on her breath and her smoky, sickly sweet perfume beneath it, and the combination made him gag. 

She worked her hand down, down, and it shouldn’t have been a surprise when she went for his belt, but it _was._ Arden twisted, trying to unbalance her, trying to pull her hand away from his neck, but she had her weight behind the hold. He left her hand at his throat and tried to stop the one that was attempting to get into his clothes. She dug sharp nails into his hands when they got in her path, though, and worked her way past his belt and zipper, into his underwear. To his horror, he found himself getting hard.

“Ooh, look at that,” Zelena cooed nastily. “And there you are, pretending to fight. It’s all right, I know _just_ what you are.”

“Stop!” he choked, the word breaking, shock killing his voice.

She squirmed up until she sat right over his hips, moving the hand that was so intent on exposing him to pull her already rucked up skirt higher. She didn’t have panties on.

She’d come here _planning_ this, he realized.

Arden grabbed handfuls of the front of her dress, struggling to find leverage to get out from under her, but his sock feet only slid on the sofa cushions, and _how was this happening?_ If somebody who had picked him up on the street had turned on him, forced him, it would have been just another incident. But he’d thought he was safe here. For the days Belle wanted him to stay, he’d thought he was safe.

It was his own fault for letting his guard down and assuming that he was safe anywhere.

She reached down again, grabbing hold of him as she raised herself up.

 _“Zelena!”_

He heard something hit the floor with a thump and rattle before Belle’s case swung out to collide with the side of her lawyer’s head.

“You _hit_ me?” Zelena shrieked indignantly. 

Her hand moved from between his legs, but the one at his throat held its grip. There was a confusion of motion, a great deal of swearing and personal insults from Zelena, and then she was finally off of him. He rolled from the sofa and scrambled out from between it and the coffee table to un-trap himself, upsetting the bottle she’d left there and turning it over as he bumped into the table leg.

It couldn’t have taken more than a couple of seconds. When he could look up, he saw Belle’s hands wrapped up in Zelena’s hair, and she yanked her lawyer off the sofa in the other direction. Zelena swung a fist from her awkward position, hitting the side table and making it rock. The lamp and bowl of flowers on top tipped off, breaking against one another. 

Belle let go of Zelena’s hair and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet as she was trying to get them under her. Belle was aware of how much smaller she was, but she was _furious,_ and she had the woman who was now decidedly her ex-lawyer and ex-business partner hauled halfway to the door before Zelena started to pull away. 

“Why are you treating _me_ like this?” Zelena spat. “He wanted it.”

“I’m damn sure he didn’t!” Belle shouted back at her, grabbing hold of her arm again.

“He’s a _whore!_ What do you expect?” Zelena tried to yank herself out of Belle’s grasp and staggered backward. 

Belle glared at her in disbelief. “How about a modicum of humanity?”

“I’ve given you a decade of loyalty and counsel, and you’re going to choose that piece of garbage over me?” With narrowed eyes and a snarl distorting her mouth, Zelena practically dared her.

“I wouldn’t call _anyone_ else garbage, were I you,” Belle said. She got Zelena to the door she’d left open wide and shoved her out as hard as she could. “ I choose him over you any day.”

She slammed the door and bolted it, going immediately to the telephone to call the hotel. Belle informed Ms. Blanchard of Zelena’s presence, insinuating that something had happened without providing details. The manager assured her that Zelena would be escorted from the premises.

“Arden?” Belle hurried back over to him. 

Going around the end of the sofa, she found him sitting on the floor. There was blood at the side of his neck, smeared over a series of scratches and onto the collar of his shirt. The fright in his face when he looked up at her hurt, and he flinched away when she leaned down.

“She’s gone,” Belle said, making her voice soft. She reached more slowly for his arm to encourage him to his feet, having to keep herself from going right back to the rage she’d felt when she walked in on Zelena attacking him. “She won’t be back. I’ve made sure of that.”

Face burning hot with humiliation, Arden tucked himself away with shaking hands. He accepted her help, going with her as she took him out of the living room, out of the spot where it happened, and to the armchair in the bedroom.

“Stay here,” she told him. “I’m going to get something for your neck.”

It only took her a few seconds to fetch the first aid kit from the bathroom. He couldn’t blame her for her silence as she cleaned the scratches. He didn’t know what to say either. 

Belle dabbed antibiotic ointment from one of the tiny packets in the kit onto the marks on Arden’s neck. They weren’t deep - only stuttering scratches that seemed to have barely broken the skin enough to bleed - but she had no doubt that they hurt. 

“Arden?” she said when she’d finished, as she cleaned up the bits she’d used from the kit. “Maybe we should go to the emergency room…”

“No.” Arden shook his head.

He didn’t know why, but he all at once had a splitting headache. Pushing up from the chair, he walked across the room, feeling the need to move. His head spun and his stomach turned with nausea again, and went back to the armchair, sinking into it. 

“Do you want me to call the police?” Belle asked.

“No.”

“They could pick her up. Because what she did was at the very least attempted-”

“No,” he said again, closing his eyes, and why couldn’t he get the word out when she’d been on top of him? “No, no, _no.”_

“All right. No police. It’s all right,” Belle said quietly. She squatted down beside him and rested her hands on his arm. 

“Cops don’t help,” he said after a few moments, looking at her hands on the sleeve of his sweater. “Never have. Once they know I’m male, and they see in the system what I am, I’m a joke.”

Belle’s hands held more snugly onto his arm. She moved one to curl over his hand and felt the coldness of shock on his skin. “This has happened before?” 

A similar chill ran its fingers up her spine when he barked a sudden laugh. It was all the answer he gave her question, and there was really no need for more of a response. She gathered plenty from the pained look on his face. 

“I’m so sorry,” Belle said. “I didn’t realize she’d be so angry. I never thought she would do something like this.”

He shook his head again. “It’s not your fault. If anything, it-”

“It isn’t yours, either,” she told him firmly before he could get the rest of his sentence out.

Arden looked up at her, meeting her eyes for a half second before looking away again. He just wanted her to stop talking about it.

“I heard-” he began, but he cut himself off, not willing to talk about how he’d heard or who he’d heard it from. “You didn’t go through with the buyout?”

“I didn’t. Mrs. Lucas and I had a talk, and we decided on an alternate path that’ll let her keep her company,” Belle told him.

Arden gave her a wavering smile. “You did a good thing.”

She lifted her hand from his, reaching up to touch his hair and cheek. He wanted so badly to lean into her touch, and the thought shook him back to what he’d meant to tell her when she got home.

“I think it’s time for me to go,” he said, hating the uncertainty in his own voice as he pulled away from her to stand. The entire room felt unsteady, but he could get downstairs.

Belle stared up at him for a second before she got to her feet. “I saw your things in the entryway.”

“I thought it would be easier if I were ready to go when I told you.”

“It’s not.”

“I can figure how many hours you’re losing, if-” he began.

“No, Arden, I’m not going to dock you anything.” She frowned at him for the very idea. “Why are you going so early? Won’t you stay through the night?”

He only shook his head.

“Why?” she asked, then went on more quietly, “Why won’t you take my offer to stay here?”

Arden knew that he should have moved when she took his hand again. He couldn’t bring himself to. His reasoning was greedy, and the desire was beyond him, so out of league that it was laughable. 

“Because I want more than being a port to pull into every few months,” he admitted.

Belle’s heart ached inside her, and she let go of him, stepping back. “How much more?”

He made a helpless, open gesture, raising and dropping his hands to his sides. “All of it.”

“All or nothing?” she said. “How is that fair?”

Arden shrugged one shoulder, meeting her gaze. He wanted too much that he didn’t deserve. Always had.

He wanted to not be in misery. He wanted to be more than just a transient object in someone’s life, to be worth something, to not be thrown away along with the condom. He wanted his son back, and to be a father again, and _none of it was possible._

Belle crossed to the closet, going to the wall safe inside. She took the security bag from it, pulling out an envelope holding the money she’d set aside for him, and walked back to Arden. She wouldn’t shove it at him from arm’s length. He deserved more than that. When he took it, she reached up, resting her hand on his shoulder so that she could rise onto her toes to press a kiss to his cheek. 

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Arden didn’t speak. He didn’t think his voice would be steady if he tried. He only looked at her, trying to burn everything about her into his memory.

“If you ever need anything. Anything at all,” she told him. “You know how to get in contact with me?”

With a nod, he leaned to return her kiss, brushing his lips near the corner of her mouth.

She walked him back into the main room, following to the chair where his things waited. The satchel she’d picked out for him sat with them. He began a process of picking them up in some seeming order.

“Let me call a bellhop to help you,” she offered. 

“I’ve got it,” he said, sounding oddly strained.

Belle went with him right to the door, and without quite intending to, she put her hand on the handle as he reached to open it. “Stay. Please?” she asked again. “Stay the night?”

“I can’t,” Arden said, pleading.

If he stayed, they would wind up sleeping together again. It would be so much worse, holding her while he counted down hours, knowing he’d never see her again, and trying to leave tomorrow.

The posture in Belle’s shoulders drooped. There were things she could say - that she _wanted_ to say - that she was almost certain would make him stay. She couldn’t get any of them to come out of her mouth. 

She opened the door for him. “Goodbye…” was all she managed. 

Arden stepped past her, over the threshold. “Goodbye, Belle.”


	19. I Reach for You and You Bring Me Home

He’d hoped he might get to say goodbye to the evening elevator attendant. Mulan had never been anything less than kind to him, and he wanted to wish her well. Her shift was long over, though. She was at home with her family. The daytime attendant was someone who’d never given him the time of day.

Arden found the manager in the lobby when he started through. She stood near the desk with one of the maids, giving the girl a lecture on responsibility and not leaving her cart out to be stolen from. He considered passing them by, but the girl was close to tears, and he knew that he could take the hotel manager’s attention off her.

“Ms. Blanchard,” he greeted.

She actually smiled at him as she answered, “Mr. Gold.” It was a real smile rather than one of the strained, tolerant ones that he usually received in her presence. 

“I thought I should say goodbye,” he told her. “You’ll be happy to know I’m leaving your hotel.”

“I take it you aren’t accompanying Ms. French to New York then?” she asked, and she shooed the maid away with a short wave of her hand.

He shook his head, bringing up a smile that was more sad than he’d have liked.

Ms. Blanchard gave him a funny look, but she sighed. “Have you arranged a car?”

“I’m headed out to catch a cab,” he said, gesturing toward the front doors with a hand full of bags.

“Oh, no, allow me to arrange something for you?” the manager offered.

Arden opened his mouth to decline, but she raised a hand and gave an echoing snap of her fingers.

“Graham!” she called toward the lobby seats.

The driver who had been taking Belle to and fro rose from one of the armchairs and approached at her summons. “Yes, ma’am?”

“You’re off the clock, aren’t you?” Ms. Blanchard asked.

He chuckled. “Never completely off the clock, am I? I’ve a little while free, though.”

“Please take Mr. Gold anywhere he wishes to go,” she told him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, placing his cap back on his head before making an about-face and heading out.

The manager turned to Arden again. “It was unusual but interesting to meet you, Mr. Gold.”

“Likewise,” he said, giving her a polite nod.

Ms. Blanchard gave him an oddly sympathetic smile. “If you ever need… _help._ Help out…”

He couldn’t help but grin. From the way she’d treated him on their first meeting, to this. “I think I’ll be all right.”

Mary Margaret watched him go. As he stepped out of her hotel, her smile slowly fell into a pinched expression of concern.

“The way they seemed together, I thought sure he and Ms. French…” Tiana said, coming to lean on the desk next to her. “Guess not?”

“Miss Sabine, I’ll be in my office if I’m needed,” Mary Margaret said, feeling a sudden and urgent need to hear her husband’s voice.

Declining Graham’s offers to put everything in the trunk, Arden set it in the back. He didn’t particularly want to make the trip with Belle’s empty seat there staring at him.

“Can you put some music on? Please?” he asked once he was in and settled. 

“Any requests?”

“No, just- anything.”

Graham turned the radio on and left it tuned to a station playing Christmas music. Arden didn’t care what played - he just couldn’t stand being stuck in the silence with his own thoughts. They pulled away from the front of the hotel and he stared down at the satchel he held on his lap in an effort to keep himself from looking back. 

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Belle stood out on the balcony off the bedroom, looking over the city lights. She never had gotten Arden to come out there properly. The closest he’d gotten had been just that morning, when he was upset with her.

She leaned on the heavy banister and looked down, wondering where he was. It was only after he left that she’d realized she had no idea where he lived. How stupid of her, after all the time she spent with him, to not know.

The balcony began to feel too open, and when she walked back inside, the suite was too quiet and empty. She’d become accustomed to him, she told herself, that was all. After a glass of wine to help ease her to sleep and a quick check of her phone, she put herself to bed. She wasn’t surprised when sleep didn’t come. 

Wrapping herself in her robe, she curled up in the corner of the sofa and switched the TV to the news while she sorted through her messages. There were still a large number of unanswered ones that Zelena had fired off just after she’d left Beverly with the new business deal. She debated on whether to delete them, ultimately deciding to leave them as a record just in case they might be useful. Arden didn’t want the authorities involved, but that didn’t mean nothing at all could be done.

A news anchor remarked upon two more bodies being found, both attributed to a recently caught murderer, both of them prostitutes. Belle watched the segment, a frown carving itself steadily deeper into her face. When it went over to a story about the hatching toy that parents were going mad searching for, she rested her forehead against her palm. How long would it be before Arden was one of those nameless bodies found somewhere? Would there be anyone to claim him, or to so much as put a name on the grave? She was frightened for him.

She hoped that Arden was all right, wherever he was. She did care about him. And he had made it clear how he felt about her. _Why_ couldn’t she have told him on the night he’d told her? Why was she apparently so emotionally stunted that she couldn’t offer him more than a hotel room and an expense account?

Belle set her phone aside on the end table and turned away from it, slumping against the arm of the sofa. 

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

He’d crawled into his bed when Graham dropped him off at the apartment, sleeping right through to the next morning. Jeff had been dead to the world, burrowed under his blankets with a foot sticking out from underneath, and he didn’t bat an eyelash at the noise.

Arden hadn’t been tired, exactly - it was the need to escape everything that had happened for a little while. Sleep rarely failed to be a good retreat. 

Still able to smell Zelena’s perfume on him - and he didn’t know whether he was imagining it, but he thought he could smell the booze, too - he took a scalding shower as soon as he wakened. Through the entire thing, he harbored an absurd wish for the big bathtub back at the hotel. He dressed afterward in a button-down and a sweater that still smelled vaguely like Belle, and he was packing when Jeff finally roused.

Jefferson didn’t appear to be surprised. Only sad. As though he knew it had been coming. Arden told Jeff what was on his mind as he packed the last of his salvageable things from the dresser. He was taking the photos down off the corkboard and slipping them safely into one of the small pockets inside his satchel when his roommate broke the silence.

“I just don’t understand why it has to be San Francisco,” Jeff grumbled. 

Somewhere between Belle leaving for work that morning and having to say goodbye to her for the last time, Arden had decided that he couldn’t stay in Los Angeles. Between her and Jeff, his heart felt tied up in knots. That would dull with time, though, he hoped. Not that it ever had about Bae.

Jeff crossed his arms tightly over his chest and leaned against the bathroom door, making the jamb rattle. “Why not just do it around here? There are plenty of places to do GED classes here.”

“I need to get _away_ from here.” Arden shook his head. He took down the picture of his son and himself at the park and slid it in with the rest before closing the flap over everything. “I need somewhere new. Where I’m less likely to run into anybody who recognizes me. Where I can feel like I have a fresh start.”

“I’m gonna miss you,” Jeff muttered at him.

Arden turned to look at his roommate. His hand fidgeted by his side. He was a bit afraid to leave, and not for his own sake. He worried what would become of Jeff when he was left to his own - not to mention Cora’s - devices. 

He didn’t know how well it would work, but it was easy to offer, “You could come with me.”

His roommate laughed. “What, and leave this palace?”

“I’m serious. Please, come with me?” Arden asked again.

Jeff shook his head, pulling a face. “I’ll come visit sometime. Just have a place for me to crash and you’ll see me. Don’t worry.”

Arden sighed. “Come here,” he said, and Jeff pushed away from the door. He pulled a small roll of money from his pocket and put it in Jeff’s hand.

“What?” Jeff gave it a confused look before frowning at it. “Arden, no. This is yours.”

“Are you turning down money? Seriously?”

“Yeah, you know where this would probably go.”

“Guess I’m hoping it won’t.” Arden looked down at the threadbare carpet. He hated to think it, but Jeff was right. The money was more likely to go up his roommate’s nose than toward anything that would help Jeff’s situation. “You remember the woman at the desk at the hotel? The one who wouldn’t let you come up?”

“Yeah,” Jeff said with a roll of his eyes. 

“Her name is Mary Margaret Blanchard,” Arden told him. “After I leave, go back, ask for her. Tell her Arden Gold told you to ask for help out.”

Jeff gave a scoffing snort. “She’s not gonna help me.”

“If she doesn’t, then- then it’s my fuckup, giving you money and leaving,” Arden said. He dropped himself onto the edge of the bed, raking his hair back before looking up again. “Clean up, get a ‘normal’ job, get out of this hellhole. Get your daughter back.”

Jeff nodded, his mouth twisting up with emotion. “You think I could?”

“If you drag yourself out of here. Yeah. You could.” Arden looked at his bags on the bed. Everything was packed. He could leave when he was ready. “I’m sorry I can’t stay.”

“No, you’re not. You can’t be. And you shouldn’t. Don’t be sorry.” Jeff stepped over, sitting down next to him. “Run and don’t look back. That’s what you’ve gotta do.”

“Seems like that’s what I’m doing.” Arden pushed away second thoughts that were far past the second time being had.

“When do you have to go?” Jeff asked.

Arden glanced up at the alarm clock on top of the dresser. “My bus leaves in thirty minutes, more or less.”

“Okay.” Jeff nodded. He slapped his thighs and stood. “Okay, I’m- I have to go see somebody. Something. I don’t think I can just sit here and watch you walk out,” he said with a shaky laugh.

Jeff looked as though he would dart out, but he leaned suddenly to grab Arden up in a hug. It took a second for Arden to return it. Somewhat finished and sniffling, Jeff let go, disappearing quickly from the apartment.

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

She didn’t think she managed more than an hour or two of sleep. It was just dawn when she finally gave up and left the sofa to get ready, consciously trying not to trudge around as she gathered her things. 

Belle dressed as usual, did her hair and makeup, though she had no intention of going back to the office. Zelena would be there, and she was afraid that she might do something irreversible to the woman if she had to see her face. She didn’t believe she could stomach seeing her ex-lawyer again. Luckily, she’d a good solution for that.

“Is this everything, ma’am?” asked the bellhop.

Belle had been in the shower when she found herself almost homesick. She wanted to be out of L.A., back in her own office and in her own home. Her loft would be quiet and empty, as well, but at least it would be welcome there. She was leaving for New York a day early. There was no reason to stay, and she needed to look into hiring a new lawyer and separating her interests completely from Zelena Oran.

“That’s all. Thank you,” she told the young man as he added her last suitcase to the luggage cart, and she stopped him to tip him a fifty before he headed out.

She walked through the lobby, stopping at the front desk to check out. The hotel manager stood behind the counter, her eyes narrowed at something on the computer screen.

“Would there happen to be any messages for me?” Belle asked, not certain what she hoped for.

Ms. Blanchard looked up. Her expression turned strangely sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Ms. French, no.”

Belle deflated a little. “I’ll be needing a car to the airport.”

“You’re leaving us a bit early,” the manager said as she beckoned to Graham. 

“The business I had here is finished for now,” Belle told her. It was the truth, after all.

Ms. Blanchard took the room keys when they were offered, and she took the invoice from the printer, sliding it across the counter. “Well, I believe everything has been taken care of. Thank you for staying with us again. Happy holidays, Ms. French.”

“Thank you. Happy holidays,” Belle replied, and she headed off to meet the car when Graham got it pulled around.

“You know…” the hotel manager said, as though offhand, before Belle could get too far. “Graham took Mr. Gold home yesterday afternoon.”

Belle’s heart gave an odd jump. She turned back to desk. “Did he?”

“I do hope your stay was enjoyable,” Ms. Blanchard told her, giving her an odd but genuine smile.

“Thank you,” she said again.

“Everything is running on time thus far, Ms. French,” Graham said as he opened the car door for her. “You should be back home in New York right on schedule.”

“That’s good to hear,” she told him, getting in.

Everywhere it was ‘Ms. French’ this and ‘Ms. French’ that. She missed the way Arden said her name.

Belle stared out the window. The plane would likely be ready when she arrived. She’d called to give the pilot a heads up before she began to pack. Even if she had to wait on the runway for a while, it would be all right. She had books, her phone, and in a pinch, she could bring out her laptop. Leroy needed to be notified about the situation with Zelena’s law firm, as well as the changes in their business relationship with the Lucases. For that matter, there were a great many business matters that would need to be addressed, if things were to change regarding the nature of her company.

She wondered just how fast her father was spinning in his grave. 

Her father had decided who she was and what she would be from the time she was too small to have her own ideas about it. By the time she _did_ have thoughts about what she wanted for herself, he’d spent too much resources on his aspirations for her, and she knew the kind of things he would have said if she tried to butt heads with him.

Now she had the power to decide her own fate, and going by Maurice French’s design was no longer acceptable. She knew what she wanted - for herself, for her life. 

They were within five minutes of the airport before she said, “Graham, you remember where you dropped Arden off… don’t you?”

“Of course, ma’am,” he said, glancing up at her in the mirror. “I never forget a route.”

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

Arden sat on his bed, looking at the bags lined up next to the door and waiting for time to walk down to the bus stop. He had a fairly good sulk going, and the weather wasn’t helping matters. It was terribly overcast. He hoped that it wouldn’t rain before he could get there, and with that in mind, he decided that perhaps it was time to go on ahead, just in case.

He brought the strap of his satchel onto his shoulder. He’d bent to reach for the pair of old duffels that had come with him from Baltimore when a car horn bellowed from outside. Stepping over to the window, he peered out through the steel grating of the fire escape and down at the street just as the horn cut off. Finding nothing there, he turned back for his bags.

Belle hurried up flight after flight of stairs, thoroughly winded and realizing how dreadfully out of shape she was for such a workout. The woman who’d answered the door at the landlord’s apartment had told her that Arden was leaving, apparently on his way to San Francisco, and had probably already gone.

He _couldn’t_ be gone yet. She had to see him, even if only to have him tell her that it was too late for what she had to say.

The woman had told her that he lived on the top floor, third door on the right. Belle ran, concentrating on not missing a step. He was still here. He had to be. 

“Arden!” she called out as she pushed open the door onto the top floor landing. “Arden!” 

Arden’s hand stilled in the middle of a reach for the doorknob. Dropping his things, he yanked the door open and walked into the hallway and listened. He’d _heard…_

He had all but decided that it was wishful thinking making him hear things, and there it was again.

_“Arden!”_

His heart thumped painfully against his ribcage as he turned toward the stairwell, toward the sound. “Belle?”

He heard the click of her heels and he laughed, not sure whether it was from the sheer relief he felt or the strangeness and incongruity of her being in this dump. She was running. He’d never seen her full out run.

“Arden!” Belle cried, and when she saw him standing there, _still there,_ her eyes began to sting. By the time she had her arms around him, she could feel the heat of tears on her cheeks.

He caught her when she collided with him, wrapping his arms around her, and she pulled herself up to kiss him hard. Their teeth bumped in her hurry, and his lip got pinched, but it was the most wonderful kiss he’d ever been given. When she pulled back, breathing hard, he leaned his head to touch hers. 

“I love you,” Belle said before she could catch her breath, before he could say anything. “I love you, and I should have said it when you did, because _I felt it._ I was being stubborn and stupid, but I love you,” she rattled off as quickly as she could.

Arden smiled and his breath hiccupped. “I love you.”

“Come to New York with me,” she said, shaking her head as she went on. “No being kept, no expense accounts, not if you don’t want. Just… come with me, Arden? Please?”

He nodded as she spoke. “Yeah. I’ll go with you.”

Belle made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh, holding more tightly to him. After everything, she’d expected him to say no. But there he was, in her arms, and if felt as though he were accepting.

“You will? You’ll come home with me?” she asked as though she couldn’t believe that he was agreeing.

“I will.” Arden laughed, sliding his arms from around her so that he could bring his hands up to her face. He cradled his palms against the soft line of her jaw, leaning in to kiss her again.

“We can go now, can’t we?” Belle looked to the bags near the open apartment door. She’d caught him just in time. Five minutes and she’d have missed him completely. The thought made her stomach lurch a bit. “Someone downstairs said you were planning to leave.”

“I’m ready. Packed and ready,” he said, brushing another kiss over her lips before he turned to get his things.

She insisted on taking the garment bags, uncomfortable with walking back down to the car carrying nothing while Arden struggled with it all. Graham waited for them, standing from his lean against the car when they came out of the building. He pressed a button on his keys to pop the trunk open.

He looked to Arden. “I’m allowed to put them in the boot this time?” he asked, grinning over at them.

“Just you be careful with that designer luggage of mine,” Arden told him with a smirk at the corner of his mouth, handing over a duffel bag.

Graham chuckled. “I’m rather confident that docking my pay for the damage wouldn’t be much of a hardship.”

“Arden?” Jeff asked as he walked up the sidewalk toward them. “Thought you’d be on a bus headed north by now.”

Arden shrugged as Graham took the other duffel from him. “Change of plans.”

“Some change,” Jeff said with a bewildered grin, looking between the unfamiliar pair that his roommate stood with. “Well, you’ve _gotta_ be Belle.” 

Belle smiled over at him. “And I take it you’re Jefferson.”

“I’d deny it out of guilt,” he teased, “but I have a feeling somebody here would rat me out.”

“Seems I’m going to New York instead of San Francisco,” Arden told him.

“Jesus Christ,” Jeff said, grimacing. “It snows there.”

Arden left Graham with the garment bags and leaned to hug Jeff again. He clapped his roommate on the back before stepping away. “I’m going to see you again. You and Grace.”

“Right.” With a doubtful laugh, Jeff stepped back onto the curb. “You have a good life. You deserve one.”

Giving Jeff a last look, Arden got into the car. He slid onto the seat beside Belle. She reached over to take his hand, squeezing it.

“Can you handle one more flight?” she asked, smiling over at him.

He brought her hand up, pressing a lingering kiss to the back of her fingers. “I think I can cope with one more.”


	20. Sheltered by Your Heart - Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (One more thank you to lizandletdie and betweenpaperpages for reading over, catching flubs, and keeping me company. And thank _everyone_ who has read and commented on this story!)

“I think perhaps you’d better keep the car ready to go, Dove,” Belle said when her driver opened the door. “And call Buzz, if you don’t mind? I suspect we’ll be in the air before the evening is done.”

He nodded and touched the glossy brim of his hat in acknowledgement. Dove never had been a man of many words - or any at all, really. He’d been her driver from the time she was a teenager, though, and they knew one another well enough for him to get his meaning across.

She’d left the office as soon as she understood what was in the file that Cleo Fox had e-mailed to her. It wasn’t something that she could tell Arden over the phone. She needed to be with him when he heard.

Arden was in the living room when she found him, sprawled on the sofa and listening to one of the audio study guides they’d acquired for his TASC exam. He followed along in the print version that he had propped open on his chest. Belle walked right up to him before he saw her.

“Hey,” he greeted, smiling up at her as he pulled his earbuds out. “You’re home early.”

The folder of papers in her hand - everything that had Cleo sent her, printed and meticulously ordered before she left the office - felt as if it grew heavier. 

“I have something to show you,” she said as she sat down next to him. 

Something about the way she said it made Arden sit up and turn the right way around. He caught sight of the folder she held. She’d come home with bits that the private investigator had been able to dig up over the past six months, always in the same sort of manila folder. But never before in the middle of the day. 

“Miss Fox found something, didn’t she?” he asked. He rubbed his palms nervously over the thighs of his jeans.

Belle shifted a bit closer to him before confirming, “She did.”

“Is it bad?” he asked.

“There’s some bad, but there’s good, too,” she told him truthfully. “I tell you everything that she tells me, and this will be no different.”

He nodded, blowing out a long, slow breath.

She leaned to lay the folder on the coffee table and opened the cover. “Cleo’s put together what happened when Milah left Los Angeles.”

 _When she took Bae and left me,_ he thought, and he didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Belle reached out to touch his cheek.

“Apparently she left with a man by the name of Killian Jones,” Belle said gently. “Do you recognize the name?”

Arden shook his head. “No, I- I didn’t know her friends.”

“He was… to say the least of it, unsavory. It was his habit to feed young women a line about being a film producer as a way of convincing them to go along with him,” she explained as she plucked a pair of stapled pages from the folder and held them out. “Sometimes that meant sleeping with him. But sometimes, he took photographs of a sensitive nature and sold them to various online enterprises or blackmailed the women, depending on their family situations. He had connections with human trafficking, as well, and there’s evidence that he sold more than a few women to overseas traffickers. Including a number of underage girls.”

Arden took the papers, looking at the small text but absorbing none of it. On the top left corner of the page, a mug shot of Jones had been printed with the words flowing around it. The man had a shock of messy black hair and blue eyes that seemed cheerfully cruel even through the grainy picture.

He frowned, turning to the second page so that he didn’t have to look at Jones’ face. “Is that what he did to Milah?”

Belle took an audible breath. “No. From everything that Cleo could find, Milah went with him willingly. Knowingly.”

“She knew what he did?” Arden asked, taken aback. “And she went anyway? She took Bae and went with him, and she _knew?”_

“That’s what it looks like. There are open federal cases with her name alongside his as having lured women in as they moved through other states.” 

“Does Miss Fox know where she is now?”

After a second of quiet, Belle answered him. “She does,” Belle said, taking another paper from the stack. It held little information, but what was there was enough. “Milah Cassidy died four years ago in Atlanta, Georgia.”

A chill went through Arden and he couldn’t get his voice behind the words when he asked, “She’s dead?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “How?”

“Officially, the cause was listed as an overdose.” She took a copy of the death certificate from the folder. “But Cleo spoke with the investigating detective, and the situation was such that he wasn’t terribly comfortable with that determination. They suspected Jones. She and Jones had both done a great deal of cocaine, and the drugs in her system were more than sufficient to have killed someone. According to the coroner’s initial report, though, they hadn’t been there long enough to be _the_ cause of death. He was pressured by the district attorney to rule it an overdose.”

Arden accepted the certificate when she offered it, but he didn’t allow himself to focus too closely on it.

“Are you all right, hearing this?” Belle asked, moving her arm behind him so that she could rest her hand between his shoulderblades. “I can skip to the basics, if you need.”

He made a helpless, open-palmed gesture with the hand not holding the papers. “I need to know.”

She went on, rubbing slowly at the center of his back. “They couldn’t prove he’d murdered her, but they _could_ prove aggravated assault. The room where she was found had been torn apart, there were marks on the body - and neighbors had called the police during disturbances before. From what could be gathered, they got into a physical altercation and… Jones won. He was found walking a couple of miles down the road, half dressed and ranting about pirates and demons when they picked him up.”

“Did they do anything to him?” Arden asked bitterly, setting the papers on the table. “Or did they let him go to keep at it?”

“It was his third strike,” Belle said. “He was put away for the mandatory sentence. He’s a bit less than four years into twenty-five to life.”

“What about Bae?” His son was the point of all this. He had to know, though he feared now more than ever what the answer might be. If Milah was dead, then… “Did he hurt Bae?”

“Bae is alive,” she told him quickly, only just understanding that he thought his son might have died, as well. “It seems his mother gave his middle name and her last name after she left, which is what made him so difficult to find. Cleo wasn’t looking for a ‘Neal Cassidy’ at first.”

Arden gave her a desperately expectant look. “But she found him?”

“He still calls himself Bae, and he’s in a group foster home in Maine, in a town called Storybrooke,” Belle explained with a smile.

Folding forward, Arden leaned his face into his hands. His shoulders shook as tears of relief that he hadn’t expected poured from him. It took him a few minutes to get hold of himself again.

“He’s- is he all right?” he asked, scrubbing the collar of his sweater over his face as he sat up.

“He’s just fine.” Belle ran a comforting hand over the back of Arden’s hair. “Cleo discovered that Milah dropped him off at a fire station a couple of weeks after she left with Jones.”

Belle wasn’t sure whether the woman had enough presence of mind to make sure that the child was safe, or if Milah and her new boyfriend had tired of taking care of a child and somehow managed to do the decent thing on accident. The outcome was on the better side of what _could_ have happened, anyway.

Arden looked at the open folder. “How long has he been there? In the group home?”

“A little over four months,” she said. “He’s been bounced around a bit, but most kids in the foster system are. By all accounts, he’s doing well. He’s healthy, he doesn’t get into any more trouble than the average nine-year-old, he does fine in school-”

“And you’re sure he’s all right?” Arden asked again.

“He is, as far as Cleo could find out.” She rested her hand at the back of his neck, feeling him relax into her touch. “Arden… the woman Bae lives with e-mailed a picture of him. Do you want to see?”

“Yes!” he gasped with no hesitation.

Belle took her phone from her purse and brought up her e-mail, touching the attachment that was Bae’s most recent school picture. The copy printed in the folder was a bit lackluster, and Arden deserved more. He drew a sharp breath and stared so hard that she thought he might burn a hole through the screen with the intensity. He reached out, bumping his fingertips on the screen, and she placed the phone in his hand.

“Oh, Bae… He’s beautiful,” Arden breathed. He looked for a bit longer before turning to Belle again. “I want to go get him. Can we go and get him?”

“We’re leaving in two hours,” Belle told him with a grin.

He gave a sob of relief and threw his arms around her. If not for Belle, he might never have known his son’s fate, much less had a chance to get him back. 

She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing just as hard as he did. “Go and pack a couple of bags,” she told him, pulling back enough to press a kiss to his cheek. “I have a family lawyer meeting us there. I’m not sure how long we might be there before we can bring him home with us, but I want you to be prepared, just in case.”

~~o~⚬~~⚬~~⚬~o~~

“Where did this come from?” he asked as he took the stuffed animal that Belle placed in his lap.

She slid her purse beneath the plane seat. “I grabbed it before we left.”

It was a crocodile that Arden found himself holding - mossy green with enormous brown eyes that the tag claimed were ‘dreamy,’ but that looked sad more than anything. He recognized it, having chosen the stuffed toy himself. Belle had helped him to decorate a bedroom for Bae not long after he’d come home with her. He suspected that it was at least partially to keep him busy and keep his hope in Miss Fox’s investigation alive while they hadn’t yet been hearing much. The room had been finished and waiting for his son for nearly four months.

“I thought it might be nice to give Bae something right away,” Belle told him, and it was partially true. But she’d stepped into the room they’d put together for his son to get the toy in equal part to provide Arden with a distraction. He was eager and anxious, and he would work himself into a panic if he didn’t have something to steer his senses away from it.

He wrapped his arms around the soft toy, holding it to him. “A good idea,” he said with a nod. 

The flight wasn’t a long one. A bit over an hour, all told. She talked to him in an attempt to keep him as calm as possible, asking how his studying went, telling him about the conversation she’d had with Ruby Lucas that morning and how it had been downright friendly. They made it to Portland by late afternoon, met at the airport by a hired car. 

“He won’t remember me,” Arden worried aloud as Belle settled into her seat after giving the driver the address. He’d had the thought a hundred times since Miss Fox began her search, but reality was setting in. 

Belle reached over, taking his hand. “It’s possible. He was very small the last time you saw one another.”

“What if he _does_ remember me?” Arden said, looking hesitantly to her. “What if he hates me? What if he blames me for what’s happened to him?”

“He isn’t going to hate you.” She drew his hand over to her lap, curling both of her own around it. “And there is nothing to blame you for.”

He squirmed a bit, touching the stuffed crocodile that sat between him and the door. Arden hoped his son would like it. He hoped that they hadn’t assumed too much about Bae’s tastes with the blue and green bedroom and the boyish toys. Belle had assured him that they could fix anything his son didn’t like.

Storybrooke was a small town, the majority of it concentrated around a main street lined on either side with shops. The directions that Belle had been given sent them all the way through and to the outskirts on the far end, where houses dwindled into forest and open space. They drove up to a big, two story farmhouse with a porch that wrapped around. It was lovely, and not at all the sterile, institutional sort of place that Arden had assumed it might be.

A woman with red hair twisted up in a bun and a dress covered in a print of seashells stood at the edge of the large field next to the house. Beside her there stood a heavyset woman who held a toddler on her hip. There were perhaps a dozen children of various ages, most of them on the play equipment installed at one end. The others played with a kickball in the empty space.

Both women turned, smiling at them, when they got out of the car. Arden wished they’d parked closer. It would have saved them all the awkward expectation of the walk from the gravel drive to the field.

“Ariel Halloran,” the redhead introduced herself when they were near enough to shake hands. “I’ll be helping you with the legal aspects of taking your son home with you. This is Johanna Norris, Bailey’s foster mother.”

“You don’t know how glad I am to meet you,” Johanna told him before returning her attention to the children. “It isn’t often we have someone seeking custody of a child who’s been a ward of the state for so long.”

“He was never meant to become a ward of the state in the first place,” Belle said, reaching over to give Arden’s arm a brief squeeze.

Bae had been only a bit over two years old when Arden saw him last. His son had just been walking confidently on his own when Milah disappeared with the baby. More likely than not, his son wouldn’t remember him at all. The only silver lining that Arden could find was Bae not having the memories of what his father had done, either.

He looked around at the children on the improvised playground. The school picture that Johanna sent to Belle had been immediately recognizable to him as his son. Bae had his eyes and his mother’s nose, and he had the same bright little smile that Arden remembered. It took a moment, but he found Bae among the children playing kickball, sending the ball flying toward a brown-haired girl who grabbed it and slung it toward another boy to pelt him on the back.

He’d missed seven years of his son’s life. There was so much he hadn’t been allowed to see. So much he didn’t know. His son had become a whole person with a life, small as it was, and Arden didn’t know him.

His breaths came more quickly until he realized that he was hyperventilating. Belle slid her arm through his, pressing herself close. He looked to her with panic in his eyes.

“I don’t know him,” he gasped out between frantic breaths, vaguely aware how little sense he made. “He won’t know me…”

“Arden, breathe,” she said as she took the stuffed toy from his hand. “Remember what Dr. Hopper told you. Just breathe. Make yourself present.”

He nodded, closing his eyes and trying to breathe as he’d practiced in the therapist’s office, using Belle’s hold on him to anchor himself to the world. Arden managed to slow his breathing and his chest stopped feeling as if there were an icepick through it.

“You’ll get to know him, and he’ll get to know you,” Bell told him. “There’s plenty of time for it now.”

After what felt like hours, he pulled in a successful lungful of air and stood up straight, looking for his son again. Bae was on the grass, tussling with another boy, both laughing themselves silly. There was even the same lilt to his son’s laugh.

“Just call for him,” Belle said when Arden seemed all right.

He looked to her again. “Call for him?”

She nodded encouragingly, rubbing his arm before stepping aside. 

Arden looked at his son and called out a weak, “Bae?” 

His son, of course, couldn’t hear over the sounds of play. Clearing his throat, he tried again.

_“Bae!”_

His son froze for a moment, then untangled himself and hopped to his feet to look around. There was an expression of shock on his small face as he made his way slowly to the edge of the field.

Johanna smiled sympathetically between father and son. She gave the little boy’s shoulder a pat as he passed her by. “Bae, this is-”

“Papa?” he said, his voice soft and unsure.

Arden dropped to his knees when his son got close, and he did his best not to burst into tears. As badly as he wanted to grab Bae to him and hold on, he waited until his son made the first move.

He didn’t have to wait long. Bae leapt in, wrapping his arms around his father’s neck. Arden felt him shake, crying, and he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He swayed as he remembered doing when his son was tiny and in need of soothing. Whether it was something that Bae remembered or not, his hug grew tighter. Looking up at Belle, his son clinging to him for dear life, he found her doing an absolutely terrible job of hiding her own tears.

It had been years since he’d allowed himself to entertain the idea. There’d been no hope for it. It wasn’t something he thought he would ever be allowed because he’d never deserved it before - how could he possibly find it now? But there it was, falling in on him all at once. Family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Visual aid:  
> [stuffed crocodile](https://78.media.tumblr.com/12f02c0cd5ad8e3be56b7535d743257d/tumblr_p0go1qFtoH1uvepcao5_r1_540.jpg)


End file.
